adrian is rad

So the One AM Radio is having a contest with their new song (found here or at the myspace page) and I’m trying to put off some other work, so I’m going to enter. The contest: Ok, let’s do this: the first person to transcribe all the lyrics correctly will get a prize. Type them out, and post them on your facebook page, your blog, website, or something like that, and send us the link.

It’s a good song, by the way. I recommend checking it out.

Oh oh oh oh oh (4x)

A old photo of your new lover
That you discovered in a book she left
Shot in some sun-drenched piazza
Or whatever in Rome or where ever it is she went.
There a sly glint in her eye
And you can only guess at what it might have meant

There’s a world without you.
There’s a world without you.
Oh oh oh oh oh (2x)

A new photo of your old lover
That you discovered to your chagrin
It’s been so long since it all went sunder
That you stopped wondering where she’s been.
Her hair’s changed. Her clothes are strange
At a party where the likes of you would never get in.

There’s a world without you.
Yeah, there’s a world without you.
There’s a world without you.
Yeah, there’s a world without you.

You don’t want the news if you’re not a part of it.
Even if it’s true you still fall apart a bit.
You don’t want the news if you’re not at the heart of it.
Even if it’s true.
Even if it’s true.

You don’t want the news if you’re not a part of it.
Even if it’s true you still fall apart a bit.
You don’t want the news if you’re not at the heart of it.
Even if it’s true.
Even if it’s true.

There’s a world without you.
Yeah, there’s a world without you.
There’s a world without you.
Yeah, here’s a world without you.

Oh

Oh oh oh oh oh (8x)

I love this clip. Among other reasons why, it reminds me of how great it is to just open up and sing along with gusto.

It should be noted that Mark Kozelek (of Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon and solo) is the first to start singing.

A couple months ago I read two books in a row with different views of the American South and I’ve been meaning to review them together.

The first was Singing Family of the Cumberlands by Jean Ritchie. It was a recommended book for a class I took in the fall of 2002 and I’m glad I finally decided to read it.

Jean Ritchie was the youngest of thirteen children, growing up in Viper, Kentucky, in the Appalachian Mountains. Her family was well known–and well documented–for singing ballads, in the Anglo-American folk tradition. That is to say, they sang ballads that came over with English, Scottish and Irish settlers and could still be found on both sides of the Atlantic. The best documented of these were the Child Ballads, but that could take up a whole lot more space if I decided to talk about those.

Written in 1955, the book is a memoir of her childhood. As fascinating as her descriptions of growing up in the early part of the 20th century in an isolated part of the Appalachians are–and they are–what really makes this book special is the songs. Interspersed in the book are transcriptions of the ballads. Say there’s a vignette about learning a particular song around a fireplace on Christmas. Well, the song is there in the book, both music and words, if you want to sing along.

The writing is wonderful and evocative, too. She immediately sets quite conversational tone and it feels like she’s telling you her family stories from the armchair next to you. In that sense, it reminds me a lot of Cash by Johnny Cash. The stories of her childhood, drenched in music, of course, cover the gambit: the rough times, the hard work, and the good times. Overall there is a bit of rose-colored glasses for the simple old times, but she also doesn’t the reader from hearing about the hard times.

If you have any interest in Appalachian music or culture, I’d recommend this book. You can pick it up at amazon.

After having some of my favorite songwriters refer to Flannery O’Connor–particularly Sufjan Stevens and David Bazan–I decided I’d read some of her works.

If you’re unfamiliar with her writing, she was a classic Southern Gothic writer, writing stories of the South with dark, twisted characters and plots. The stories are written in a dense prose and some take quite a bit of effort to wade through, but the best among them are quite amazing stories. She really sucked me in to the lives and worlds of her characters and even when I saw a hint of the outcome, I still enjoyed reading it.

She’s also known as a Catholic writer, but more often than not, if religion enters the story at all, it’s much more ambiguous or complex than one might expect from someone so well known to be writing from a religious point of view.

She died quite young and the complete short stories covers a lot of her output. Besides the stories, she only wrote two novels. And with anything complete you get not only the greatest hits, but the stuff in between and the warm-up in the beginning. If I had to do it over, I might start with a selection of her short stories, but if you’re a completest, this is for you.

You can also pick this one up from amazon.

Okay, it’s just preposterous to call this a June mixtape. But I have something planned for July already.

This is the 32nd mixtape I’ve done since I started these three years ago. It may be my last for a while. I might get one more in before I leave for SA. We’ll see.

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 2009june 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 June 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:

1. The National Wasp Nest
2. Octopus Project Wet Gold
3. Bombadil So Many Ways to Die
4. Silver Scooter Goodbye
5. Weezer I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams
6. Grand Lake Concrete Blonde on Blonde
7. Leo Kottke The Driving Year of the Nail
8. Joe Pug A Thousand Men
9. The Woodlands Until the Day Dims
10. Two Sheds You (Live at KZSU)
11. Gillian Welch Look at Me Miss Ohio
12. Jeff Mangum My Dream Girl Don’t Exist
13. Oh No! Oh My! I Have No Sister
14. the Magnetic Fields All the Umbrellas of London
15. The Album Leaf Over the Pond
16. Mogwai Cody
17. Unwed Sailor Ruby’s Wishes
18. Riceboy Sleeps Boy 1904

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:

1. the Rural Alberta Advantage @ Central Presbyterian Church
2. the Wooden Birds @ Okay Mountain
3. the Avett Brothers, the Wrens @ Radio Room
4. Fanfarlo @ Central Presbyterian
5. Tallest Man on Earth @ Red 7

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:

1. Shirley Ann Lee There’s a Light
2. Sam Cooke Rome (Wasn’t Built in a Day)
3. Gospel Supremes Sinner Man
4. Deer Tick Beautiful Girls
5. An Horse Little Lungs
6. Lucky Soul Whoa Billy
7. The Low Anthem This God Damn House
8. Bon Iver Brackett, W9
9. The Avett Brothers Die, Die, Die
10. The Welcome Wagon But For You Who Fear My Name
11. Mumford & Sons Little Lion Man
12. Ohbijou St. Francis
13. Great Lake Swimmers Pulling on a Line
14. Venice is Sinking Ryan’s Song
15. The Weakerthans Plea from a Cat Named Virtue
16. Viva Voce Octavio
17. Red Cortez All the Difference
18. The Wooden Birds Sugar
19. A Classic Education Stay, Son

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. Fanfarlo I’m A Pilot
2. Bishop Allen The Ancient Commonsense of Things
3. Andrew Bird Tenuousness.mp3
4. Throw Me the Statue Ship
5. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone Old Panda Days (w/ Nick Krgovich)
6. Realpeople My Night With The Prostitute From Marseille
7. Birds & Batteries I’ll Never Sleep Again
8. Laura Gibson Spirited
9. the Gentle Guest Longfellow
10. Blind Pilot Oviedo
11. Iron & Wine Dead Man’s Will
12. Frontier Ruckus Orion Town 2
13. .tape. Rosa Luxemburger
14. Lymbyc Systym Processed Spirits
15. Grandchildren Cold Warrior
16. Riceboy Sleeps Happiness
17. Amiina Gl-mur
18. J. Tillman Kids

[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.

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:

• “Bury Me Beneath the Willow”–melancholy and gorgeous.
  This version by Almeda Riddle.

  Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

• “Two Sisters”–a famous ballad, but I really like this version with a refrain
  This version is by Horton Barker:

  Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

• “Stick to the Craythur”/ “Humours of Whiskey”–great Irish drinking song.
  This version by Tim Lyons:

  Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

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. Try Me Bicycle Big Small
2. Tallest Man on Earth the Gardener
3. Ohbijou Tender Bones
4. Karl Blau Before Telling Dragons
5. Marv Johnson Come to Me
6. The Swinging Tigers Snake Walk (Part 1)
7. Henry Lumpkin Don’t Leave Me
8. The Satintones Going to the Hop
9. Coconut Records I am Young
10. Shugo Tokumaru Green Rain
11. Grouper Heavy Water/ I’d Rather be Sleeping
12. The Gaslight Anthem The ‘59 Sound
13. The New Amsterdams Hover Near Fame
14. The New Year Seven Days and Seven Nights
15. Peter Broderick With Notes in My Ears
16. Koernag Namadlanga Ngiyalila
17. Kasai Allstars Kafuulu Balu
18. The Very Best Kamphopo
19. Mogwai The Sun Smells Too Loud

[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.

View Larger Map

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:

1. Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago
2. J Tillman Minor Works
3. the Rural Alberta Advantage Hometowns
4. Horse Feathers House with No Home
5. Two Sheds Two Sheds EP [EP]
6. James Hunter The Hard Way
7. Joe Pug Nation of Heat [EP]
8. Silian Rail And I You, to Pieces
9. Johnny Flynn A Larum
10. the Dodos Visiter
11. Raphael Saadiq The Way I See It

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

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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’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 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.

Check it!. The presitigous Stanford Daily published an article I wrote about indie music on TV. KZSU is trying to get a regular column in the paper.

It’s marginally interesting.

(It’s an expansion of this post.)

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.

I subbed for someone tonight on the radio. I did an hour and change of old-time music.

playlist

newspecialfun (mp3)

Grab the latest mixtape now. I’m moving it into a password protected folder a day from now.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Grab the January mix tape while you can; I’ll be moving it to a password protected folder tomorrow (or Wednesday).

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:

• designverb: a blog about design related topics, largely product design and the like. fairly interesting stuff.
• rbally has a nice Cat Power show from Berlin for download [update: rbally seems to have taken this down/ broken]
• youtube has a great chemistry lab safety video explosion. (dylan, are you seeing this?)
• bitsandpieces silly college humor, but sometimes entertaining
• wikipedia has a list of African countries by GDP (adjusted for purchasing power parity) per capita. South Africa’s on top, but barely. For reference, the US is 3rd in the world for GDP (PPP) per capita at about $42,000.
• oregon trail is it possible you haven’t played this game? there are even shirts about it. And you can download an emulated version
• Tom Wilson I feel like I should add him to my list of best producers. He did Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Velvet Underground and more

[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):

• How to Care for your Introvert (from 2003; describes a lot of people I know and, well, me) and a current interview with the author
• David Copperfield gets mugged but doesn’t lose any property because of…slight of hand!
• old timey (WWII-era) color photographs of America
• the JFK assassination Zapruder film, stabilized even stranger and freakier
• songtapper tap a rhythm, it tells you the song. didn’t work as well as I wanted, but still interesting
• shiny mud balls only from Japan…and a how-to!
• Amateur a non-piano player or drummer makes a music video with himself playing those two instruments with clever editting
• a photo essay of female soldier in Iraq
• free historical sounds (as mp3s) “I Have a Dream”(MLK) to “Luckiest Man on the face of the Earth” (Lou Gehrig)
• Sheep Market 10,000 sheep drawn by online workers via Amazon’s odd Mechanical Turk service
• crazy aerial photos that look like tiny model cities
• Lake Peigneur disappears a 14″ drill bit made a lake and much of an island disappear
• 1964 New Yorker article on Dylan
• hilariously bad movie pitches
  

  Idea #1:
  What if the Internet Turned into a Were-Wolf

• Photos of European football (soccer) fields very diverse and often in gorgeous settings

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:

• 3 X 2GB SD cards (in addition to the 2 I already have)
• 6 X Velvia 100 color slide film, 6 X Tri-X 400 black and white negative film

Just because:

• One Kiss Can Lead To Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost & Found
• one CD not to be named due to its embarassing nature (I’ll chalk it up to comfort music) [update: oh fine, it might be this]

[another update:] I also bought a few tickets to this year’s Noise Pop:

• Feb 28: Sebadoh (orignal line up) at the Great American Music Hall
• March 2: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at the GAMH

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.

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.

This sketch, from last year, is meant to be funny, and it is, but it’s also a good song.

I did my top dozen albums of 2006 show last night. My picks and start-with-these tracks:

1. Fionn Regan The End of the World
   • Be Good or Be Gone
   • Put a Penny in the Slot
2. Beirut Gulag Orkestar
   • Postcards from Italy
   • Scenic World or Mount Wroclai
3. the Long Winters Putting the Days to Bed
   • Fire Island, AK
   • Seven
4. Bishop Allen Month EPs
   • Corazon [from January]
   • Flight 180 [from April]
5. Sufjan Stevens Avalanche
   • The Mistress Witch From McClure
   • No Man’s Land
6. Girl Talk Night Ripper
   • Hold Up
   • Too Deep
   • Smash Your Head
7. Damien Jurado And Now That I’m in Your Shadow
   • Hoquaim
   • Denton, TX
8. Cat Power The Greatest
   • The Greatest
   • Willie
9. David Bazan Fewer Moving Parts
   • How I Remember
   • The Devil is Beating his Wife
10. Eric Bachmann To the Races
    • Home or Genie, Genie
    • Lonesome Warrior
11. Hold Steady Boys and Girls in America
    • Chips Ahoy!
    • You Can Make him Like You
12. Elvis Perkins Ash Wednesday
    • While You were Sleeping
    • Good Friday

A little bit about each album after the jump.

(more…)

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:

• Eric Bachmann To the Races
• Hold Steady Boys and Girls in America
• Girl Talk Night Ripper
• Damien Jurado And Now That You’re In My Shadow
• Beirut Gulag Orkestar
• Sufjan Stevens Avalanche
• Sufjan Stevens Songs for Christmas box set
• Long Winters Putting the Days to Bed
• Cat Power The Greatest
• David Bazan Fewer Moving Parts EP
• Soft Drugs In Moderation EP
• Johnny Cash American V
• Mountain Goats Get Lonely
• Fionn Regan End of History (came out in england at least)
• Bishop Allen Month EPs
• ms john soda notes and the like
• Danielson Ships
• V/A Eccentric Soul 9: Big Mack Label
• V/A Eccentric Soul 11: Good God! a Gospel Funk Hymnal
• Elvis Perkins Ash Wednesday
• Built to Spill You in Reverse
• Album Leaf Into the Blue Again
• Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy The Letting Go
• Swan Lake Beast Moans
• Belle and Sebastian Life Pursuit
• Mates of State Bring it Back
• Mogwai Mr. Beast
• Centro-Matic Fort Recovery

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.

1. Sennheiser HD600 open a classic and a benchmark. some of the brightest and clearest sound I’ve heard from a headphone. absolutely flat, though: you hear what’s in the music and it makes nothing sound prittier; if the music sound crappy, these won’t fix it. great for monitoring music while mixing or the like (but bad for recording because open headphones can bleed to the mic). modular cable a plus. openness can be annoying if you want outside sounds to be blocked out. fairly comfortable, can be worn hours at a time.
2. Beyerdynamic DT990 open great sounding, slightly bassy, still very clear. great everyday headphones. the ones with the velour earpads are super comfortable, possibly my favorite in terms of comfort level
3. Beyerdynamic DT770 closed like a closed version of the 990s. Not quite as clear but still sound very clear and nice. slightly bassy. similarly comfortable to the 990s.
4. Technics RP-DH1200 closed fairly clear but muddy sound. fairly bassy and optomized for a louder sound that I’d like. the force both down and in is too high so they’re fairly uncomfortable for longer periods of time. solid construction. Modular cable a plus.
5. Audio Techics ATH-AD900 open Fairly clear sound, but not as bright as the HD600s (probably not as good of a high-end response). Large earpieces that sit too low and the force from the headband is too light.

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.

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:

• Girl Talk Night Ripper
• Ida Will You Find Me [used]
• Sigur Ros Saeglopur

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:

• Mark Kozelek Rock N Roll Singer
• Rogue Wave Out of the Shadow
• V/A The British are Coming, Vol. 1
• Polyphonic Spree Wait
• Red House Painters Songs for Blue Guitar
• Pedro the Lion Whole EP
• V/A Songs of the Old Regular Baptists, Vol 2: Lined-out Hymnody from Southeastern Kentucky

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’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.

1. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones Let’s Face It
2. Skankin’ Pickles Green Album

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)

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.

I’m all musicy lately, but here are three more things of interest:

• Sort of an update to that Sufjan @ Zellerbach post: the East Bay Express has an interesting article about how the Pacific Mozart Ensemble got to sing with Sufjan
• TW Walsh is now giving away (free! with artwork!) his band, the Soft Drugs’ latest EP, In Moderation. Solid stuff and I particularly like Defending the Paint (mp3)
• It looks like Dave and I (as Greetings from Johannesburg) are going to enter “Thaw” in Salon’s Song Search Contest

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.

As stereogum reported yesterday and pitchfork reported today, Sufjan’s coming out with a box set of his Christmas EPs (and other Christmas stuff). I’m a little of two minds about it. It’s good because I like sufjan a lot, but I also already have three of the five EPs and I’m not sure I want to shell out $$$ for a box set to complete the set. I probably will though.

Five albums that I own but somehow have failed to rip from CD:

1. Beach Boys Pet Sounds
2. Low Things we Lost in the Fire
3. Beulah The Coast is Never Clear
4. Mogwai Young Team
5. Pedro the Lion The Only Reason I Feel Secure

Other albums that I missed ripping:
Creedence Clearwater Revival Chronicle Vol. 1
Rachel’s the Sea and the Bells
Mark Eitzel The Invisible Man
Beatles Let it Be
Matt Pond PA Green Fury
Modest Mouse This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About
Seam Headsparks

Tide (with Febreze) is using the #22 great song of all time, Be My Baby, in one of their commercials. They start with the huge drums from the beginning at the beginning (as well they should) and then there’s an absolutely horrible cut to the first chorus.

The edit’s so bad it hit me like a train.

So not only does Ken Jennings have a blog (which is hilarious), but he likes the Mountain Goats and he writes about it. How cool is that!

from Aquarius:

1. Beirut Gulag Orkestar
2. Sufjan Stevens Avalanche
3. V/A The Sound the Hare Heard [Kill Rock Stars compilation]
4. Ben Gibbard and Andrew Kenney Home Splits Series, Vol. 5

from Amoeba:

1. Built to Spill Keep It like a Secret
2. Built to Spill There’s Nothing Wrong with Love
3. the Long Winters When I Pretend to Fall
4. Nedelle From the Lion’s Mouth
5. Johnny Cash American V: A Hundred Highways

I’m pretty excited about this. I’ve decided to make an online mix tape and post it here for all of you guys. I want to do this monthly, but I’m not sure on that frequently.

They’ll be 60-76 minutes long so you can burn them onto a CD if you want.

They’ll always have a zip file with the following:

1. liner notes
2. mp3s
3. a song list .txt file*

*With the song list you should be able to import all the mp3s to iTunes and then say “import” and select the song list and it’ll come up as a playlist with all the mp3 in order. Let’s cross our fingers that this works.

I have also made a new category for online mixtapes so you can find all of these easily.

Lastly, these will be up for a limited amount of time (after which I will probably move them into a password protected directory) so get them now. If you missed one, email me (firstname@thisdomain) and I’ll give you the password, etc.

So that’s the concept. I wouldn’t just announce this and leave you dry, so here it is, mixtape Vol. 1.

Adrian’s July 2006 mixtape (zip file) [file moved to password protected folder]

If you want to check out the liner notes(pdf) before you download, go ahead. This one has some great new songs and good older ones too, by Laura Veirs, Beirut, Jose Gonzalez, the Soft Drugs and more. It totals 66 minutes of music.

One more thing: these are for evaluation purposes. I strongly encourage you to support these artists with your dollars. Buy CDs, go to shows, etc.

[Update:] Thanks to Jesse for making an mpu playlist file for all you non-iTuners.

[Another update:] I’ll welcome any feedback on the mixtape that you want to give. Except from you, Dug. I don’t care about what you have to say. [ZING]

Colin pointed the Album-a-Day project. It looks pretty cool. I remember Jesse and I were going record an album in a weekend once. That never happened.

see also: the covers contest

This morning, I finished Bob Dylan’s autobiographical Chronicles, Vol. 1.

It’s not your average autobiography by any stretch. It just arounds to a few different periods of his life and focuses on those. Those periods include when he first moved to Minneapolis and later New York and hadn’t been signed yet, a period shortly after his motorcycle crash in the last 60s and a period at the end of the 80s when he was recording Oh Mercy with Daniel Lanois.

He just between these, giving little reference to time and intervening facts. If you don’t know some of the Bob Dylan story going in, you’d probably get lost in these jumps. Reading the Dylan wikipedia entry would serve you well.

Even in these little parts that he focuses on, he doesn’t provide the reader with the facts and chronology as much as he provides his thoughts on what was happening.

It’s a funny biography. The reader goes in and comes out of it the same in many ways; he doesn’t give the Chronology of many events, he doesn’t talk about writing or recording his most famous albums; he doesn’t talk of his stint (or permanent change to?) christianity; he doesn’t talk about going electric; he doesn’t talk about “Blowin in the Wind”, “The Times, They are a-Changin’”, or “Mr. Tambourine Man.”

It is nearly three hundred pages long, so he does talk about something though. He somewhat extensively talks about the folk scene in NYC in the early 60s. He also talks extensively about his early influences, including, of course, Woody Guthrie.

He also writes quite a few pages about a new guitar playing style he developed in the late 80s and early 90s. Not so interesting.

In the way he writes the book and in various passages in the book, it seems clear to me: Dylan doesn’t want to be what people want him to be. He doesn’t want to be the Voice of a Generation and he doesn’t want to write about “Blowin’ in the Wind” or going electric.

All of that being said, for the most part, he writes interestingly and he really shows the hunger of his young self. Just don’t expect him to tell you all his little secrets.

Next up: perhaps King Dork by Frank Portman.

I like Neutral Milk Hotel a lot, but this might be a little rediculous.

There was a post on an Elephant 6 message board, apparently from Jeff Mangum, in which he talks about having new songs and thinking about recording them.

You Ain’t No Picasso picked it up, followed by Brooklyn Vegan, followed by Pitchfork and the previously reputable Billboard. No one actually knows if it’s even him, but everyone’s aflutter!

[Update: and Billboard retracts]

Walter pointed me to Matthew’s Celebrity Pixies Tribute. It’s a bunch of Pixies recorded in the style of, and with imitated production values of, various famous singers and bands.

It’s pretty interesting stuff and it’s a very impressive effort by whoever this Matthew guy is.

My favorite is:

Monkey Gone to Heaven as prefrormed by Frank Sinatra

also:

Levitate Me as preformed by the Beach Boys

A couple weeks ago, Dylan IMs me:

Dylan: what’s the girl that plays harp and sings like a cat in a blender?
Me: Joanna Newsom?
Dylan: yeah, that’s the one.

Today, there was a pretty well-wrtten post by Long Winters front man John Roderick covers Bonnaroo for CMJ. In part he talks about Cat Power:

I thought, “Great. I’ve been suckered in. Chan Marshall is backstage having kittens and we’re going to sit out here with building anticipation only to have her never leave her trailer.”

3 songs or albums that I like whose titles include a state name and a cardinal direction:

1. All Hail West Texas by the Mountain Goats
2. “East Virginia”, version by Damien Jurado
3. “Sodom, South Georgia” by Iron & Wine

Any “North”-state songs or albums? North Carolina or Dakota don’t count. Any other examples for the other (already given) cardinal directions?

It took me a long time to like Bob Dylan. A lot of his famous stuff just isn’t that good—or rather, it’s good, I just don’t like them much. The first of his stuff that I really liked was off of the excellent first disc of the Bootleg Series, Vol 1-3. Here he was singing sparse acoustic songs that have ties to folk music (and when I say folk music, I mean the traditional type: songs have unknown authors and multiple versions) or actual traditional songs (like ‘House Carpenter’ and other ballads of the Child type). Here’s music I could get behind.

Over the next few years, in digging around for studio versions of music off of that Bootleg disc, I found myself going to a few of his early albums, particularly The Times, They Are a Changin’ and The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Earlier this year, I made The Times my first Bob Dylan album.

The instrumentation is constant throughout: Dylan, his guitar and harmonica (usually recapitulating the melody). The guitar parts are low in the mix, so these songs are sustained by their lyrics and melodies.

The quality of the songs ranges from good to amazing. Among my favorites are: “the Times they Are a Changin’”, “With God on our Side”, “Boots of Spanish Leather”, “When the Ships Come in” and “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.”

“The Times” is overused and misused (including a Kaiser Permanente commercial—that I actually like a lot—about an overweight guy getting in shape), but it’s still an amazing song if you step back and listen to it. Imagine hearing this song for the first time, how bowled over you would have been.

I first hear “With God on our Side” on Bootleg Series, Vol. 6 in a duet with Joan Baez (who I don’t like alone, but I love when harmonizing with Dylan). It’s a song with some immense gravity to it and a timelessness to it, despite the anachronism of the lyrics at this time.

“Boots of Spanish Leather” is a ballad, in the Child sense. It’s a pretty and fairly simple story about a lover leaving and possibly not returning. I love the melody, which is really similar to another Dylan favorite of mine, “Girl from North Country” (which is possibly even better in its this-is-a-really-old-song-that-I-wrote-ness) and apparently both draw melodic inspiration to Martin Carthy’s version of Scarborough Fair (which is Child #2 for those that are counting). It also has such longing in it.

“When the Ships Come in” is possibly my favorite Dylan song. I think it’s something about the combination of melodic and lyrical strength in the song. It’s another in the “The Times They are a Changin’” camp of the-world-is-changing songs; however I like this one better. I’m totally blown away that Dylan apparently wrote this one one quick angry stint in a hotel room after the clerk didn’t recognize him and treated him poorly for his unkempt appearance.

“The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol” is a modern narrative ballad about a society man accidentally killing a servant in a Baltimore hotel and the aftermath. I find in narrative songwriting, the true gift comes in which details to include and how all the details return back together at the end of the song to bring it to a conclusion. In this sense, Dylan triumphs on both accounts: the details are enought to develop the story and the characters without bogging it down and the conclusion hangs largely on the sentence from the judge.

So yeah, if you don’t know: The Times They Are a Changin’ is good.

Here’s a contest that can send you to Austin City Limits for three days to blog about the festival. I’m probably going to enter a spruced up version of this post. Wally, you should do this.

And this is a songwriting blog with some tips and whatnot on various aspects of songwriting. I’m not sure I’m picking up all that they’re putting down, but it gets the mind going.

Both of these, I think, I got from largeheartedboy.

I saw the Apostle tonight. I’m not sure why I put it in my Netflix queue, but I did.

It’s a film about a southern preacher who puts his wife’s lover into a coma and then flees to rural Louisiana. Robert Duval wrote, directed and starred in it.

There are few performances where there is no explanation for the transformation from the actor to the character. Which is to say, Robert Duval does an absolutely amazing job as the preacher. He has all the stylistic elements down and acts this complex character very well.

I have a soft spot for the charasmatic southern preaching style and good southern gospel and it’s nice to see it done right in this movie.

Anyway, a well made and well-acted movie. Also, the DVD has a good “making of” feature, but it basically has spoilers in it, so only watch it after watching the movie.

• I should go to more risk concerts, fewer good concerts by bands I’ve seen before. For instance, I should see Danielson in a couple weeks and I probably shouldn’t be sad that I missed the Mates of State a couple weeks ago (I’ve seen them 8ish times)
• I’m trying to decide if songwriting taking into account all or almost all of my musical influences is possible. I like a lot of music. I like indie rock, post-rock, old-timey/ early american field recordings, celtic, african, other world music, motown (and other early R&B/ soul), oldies, some hip hop and the list goes on. In the past, I’ve managed to combine some influences together in my songwriting: the Greetings from Johannesburg stuff was largely an experiment in fitting world music ideas into indie pop (”Thaw” is based on the Balinese Ketjak rhythm, “Bitter” has Senagalese sabar drumming, “Nashville” cops a brazilian drumming line, “Drunken” has a 15 beat long beat-cycle). I also combined—in my opinion successfully—motown, indie rock, african drums and a banjo (which I couldn’t really call “old-timey” or country either) on one of the covers contest songs. But really, there’s a ton more stuff out there and floating around in my head. I always thought music had to be segmented a bit. Like Where’s Luke? was the folksy mostly-acoustic group, the Grievance Committee was going to be my post rock band. But many great bands aren’t like that: many of them combine a lot of disparate influences to make their music. I don’t know if I have the ability to do that.
• I’m thinking of trying to write some hip hop instrumental/ base tracks. I’ve been listening to a little bit of hip hop recently. I don’t like a lot of hip hop because a lot of it is a) musically crap and b) lyrically stupid (sometimes well-written but still stupid). Personally, I think a lot of the hip hop paradigms are stupid: songs about smoking pot and being misogynistic toward women aren’t for me. There is some hip hop out there that has good music and that tackles complex issues in the lyrics. I’m getting off on a tangent here. My point here is that a lot of hip hop has crap music and so I’m thinking of writing some hip hop music. I don’t think I could MC well, so I’ll either leave that for someone else or leave them as instrumentals. Any aspiring MCs out there?
• At a certain point I stopped really getting jazz. Most music has tension and release. Often in jazz the tension comes from dissonance in the harmonic structure and progressions. I don’t always find the way this is done in jazz satisfying. (On the other hand, I’ve really come to appreciate some “new” jazz, like Magali Souriau’s “Dersu Usala” which is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard.)
• I mostly don’t like this dance indie rock that is all the buzz (and has been for a year or so). It doesn’t get me going.
• I’m thinking of spinning of my music stuff into a separate blog and turn that into more of an mp3 blog. It’s probably be over at the new me. It probably me mostly indie rock mp3s, but I’d love it be a place where I could equally post Sacred Harp field recordings and rare Motown tracks. I don’t know what would be left here, though, as half of what I post here is music stuff and I’ve already moved most of my photo stuff over the godhatesmath.

So not only is this a sweet german indie rock blog, but it has a bunch of mp3s of a good band, Beirut, who I previously posted about.

Nedelle played on my radio show last night. It went pretty well. One minor problem: it seems I had some mic distortion here and there—mainly on ’s’ sounds. Any thoughts on that one? Just a mic placement? Popper stopper? I was pretty pleased with out it sounded otherwise—the guitars and the mix both sounded good to me.

The mp3’s online:
Nedelle – Live at KZSU

Her setlist:

• The Last Thing I Do
• I Hate a Mountain
• Spell the Night Right
• Heatstroke
• Blueberry Mineshaft

The rest of my playlist.

The other day, Stereogum had some mp3s by a artist called Lily Allen. I listened. This is interesting stuff. It’s a bit hard to describe. It’s sort of rap, sort of pop, but it also has a pretty great sample, probably taken from an old field recording or a 78. It’s definitely not what I usually listen to and it has grown on me to a guilty-pleasure extent.

Lily Allen – LDN

Interestingly, there’s another track by a different band that has a very similar base musical feel but ends up being entirely different. Starting with an upbeat ukulele part (note: the uke’s name is ukulele, not ukelele), Beirut’s Postcards from Italy ends up being something a lot more akin to Andrew Bird. It apparently has a middle-eastern feel to it, but personally, I think it’s got mostly a songwriter sort of feel: it’s much closer to Andrew Bird, than, say, Oum Kulthum.

Beirut – Postcards from Italy

Thoughts on either track?

the decemberists and deerhoof. The decemberists are the softer, more acoustic and better of the two. I like the decemberists. Deerhoof leaves me wondering why people think they’re great.

I did a night of only music on vinyl (LP’s, 7″s, 10″s, etc) on my radio show tonight. Here’s the playlist. I ended up having way too much stuff, like usual and there was some stuff I wish I had time to play. I think I’ll have to play more vinyl on my show on a regular basis.

My dad’s retiring at the end of May, which is a bit of a shock. Not because he’s not “of retirement age”—I’m sure he doesn’t mind me saying he’s 61, as long as I add that he looks at least 10 years younger. He’s always invested himself in his work, so it seems odd that he’ll be done with that. I’m sure he’ll enjoy relaxing…for a few months. Then he’ll get antsy, I’m sure.

The earlier indicators also seem to say that he’ll be less frugal in his retirement—there’s been talk of a fancy car, which my real dad (before the alien imposter took over his body) would never think of buying. Hard-working and frugal, that’s my dad…for another month or so.

I guess it also seems strange because of the implications, if he’s retiring, if he’s 61, that means, I’m old, at least in my mind. He met my mom when he was about my age; my mom was younger than I am now when they got married. I guess I have no reason to feel or think I’m getting old; afterall, I have plenty of time. But, yes, it is strange; at some point, I became an adult and no one told me. I work and save money (for retirement no less!) and pay bills and pay rent and do my taxes. When’d that happen? It’s all been quite sneaky.

In any case, he’s retiring, and so I ordered him this (don’t click that link, dad, if you’re reading! it’ll ruin the surprise!). It’s pretty appropriate, given that it was his industry for the last 17 years or so. He’ll probably thank me; and then as politely as possible, ask how I thought of getting him such a thing. He won’t like it or put it to much use, I don’t think.

Tonight’s playlist.

I played all of In the Aeroplane over the Sea after my recent reading of the book of the same title.

Man, what an absolutely amazing album. I restrained myself from listening to any NMH while reading it or since: I wanted the first time I listened to it to be all the way through, undistracted.

Yeah, I’m just a little obsessed with that album. Thank you, Colin Ashe.

In the last week I finished Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon and In the Aeroplane over the Sea by Kim Cooper.

Michael Chabon has become famous for books since Mysteries of Pittsburgh, most notably Wonder Boys and the Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay. It’s a story about a kid’s post-college summer, his gangster father, his gay friend and his retro-loving girlfriend. It also takes place, in part, in Junction Hollow, the “Lost Neighborhood”, an odd place in a ravine beneath CMU that one can end up accidentally, but rarely on purpose.

It’s a well-written book, interesting and engaging. It’s bittersweet; not too bitter, not too sweet. It’s like an indie movie.

Then I read In the Aeroplane over the Sea about about the best album of the last decade. It’s a small book, barely hand-sized and only a little over a hundred pages long, so you can really gun through this. But then again, it’s sort of like extensive liner notes and how many liner notes do you know that are a hundred pages long? The book goes through the history of the band and the Elephant 6 collective, and the events leading up to the recording of the album. If you are obsessed with this album, I’d recommend this book.

Next up: Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane.

gorilla vs bear links us to a nice storyboard music video by a band called Midlake for “Young Bride”. I like the song (most for the rumbling drums under the music) and I like the video.

also, you can head over to gorilla vs. bear to get a cool track from Oh No! Oh My! I have no sister. I like this one a lot.

Also, not from gorilla vs. bear, but doesn’t Kanye’s “Touch the Sky” just get your booty movin’?

On Saturday I saw Jose Gonzalez at, appropriately, the Swedish American Hall.

This was my first trip to the Swedish American Hall, though it’s right above another venue that I’ve been to many times, the Cafe du Nord. It’s an interesting venue, to be sure. Imagine a Swedish Elks Lodge hall and that’s about what you’d have. Lots of tudor-like exposed beams and whatnot. It was a seated show, which was nice and appropriate to the music. The acoustics were pretty good, but it’s very reflective, especially of audience noise. Luckily the audience was pretty quiet and respectful, but all the applause sounded thunderous, even when it didn’t seem like people were clapping particularly loud or hard.

The opening band was the the Finches Have you seen the Jerk? Remember the scene on the beach where Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters sing “You Belong to Me”? The Finches are sort of like this. Simple and, in a way, old sounding songs with sweet lead female vocals and male harmonies. It’s just guitars and vocals. I picked up their EP for $5.

the Finches – Daniel’s Song

I talked to the guys from Cafe du Nord, who book the Swedish American Hall shows, a couple months back about this show and they were a bit worried that Jose wouldn’t fill this room. Well it ended up selling out a week or so before the show and by the end of the Finches set, it was standing room only.

I like Jose a lot. He’s sort of like the Swedish-Argentinean version of Iron & Wine. He doesn’t have a whole lot in his catalog yet, an album and a CD singles/ EPs, so maybe 15-20 songs, and they’re all about 3 minutes long. He ran through his main set not talking a lot and playing his songs without much of a break. He came back for an encore and did another 3 songs. All of this lasted about 50 minutes. I was pretty tired, so this worked out pretty well.

It was a good show, but not in the sense of Jose bringing a lot more to the live show than he brings to his recordings. He played his songs well and said a few short, funny things between songs, but that was pretty much that.

Jose Gonzalez – Crosses

I found an interesting and extensive article by Rian Milan, originally for Rolling Stone, about Soloman Linda’s song “Mbube”, written in 1939, which was later rewritten as “Wimoweh” and “the Lion Sleeps Tonight” with hardly any royalties going to Linda or his decendents.

As Chris at gorilla v bear says, you probably need more mash ups like you need a heart attack, but these are some good ones.

Who would think of mashing up Jose Gonzalez, the Swedish/ Argentinean equivalent to Iron & Wine, with hip hop tracks? Not me certainly. But some dude did. And I like the results.

Go here to get them. I like 2 Words better (Kanye + Jose).

I tend to like hip hop in mash up form better, because sometimes I feel like the music part of hip hop is sometimes done without paying much attention to it. In mash ups, especially with songs that I know and like, there is attention paid to the music part, at least in equal parts to the lyrics in this instance.

And I like hearing soft acoustic music with hip hop drums on top.

A NY Times op-ed piece about Pittsburgh, its relationship to the Steelers, and its low opinion of itself.

Sports Illustrated has some Super Bowl photo galleries up.

What are people getting as far as Super Bowl champions gear? hats? shirts?

Chicago Tribune has an interesting article about people listening to their ipods at work. I listen to mine (or my laptop) constantly. I assume everyone does. Do you?

I haven’t made a fun list in while. Here’s something interesting that I discovered today.

3 good songs that have “I will follow” in the title:

• I will follow you into the dark Death Cab for Cutie
• I will follow U2
• I will follow him Little Peggy March

Any know any other good ones? How about bad ones? So far I’ve only discovered good songs that have “I will follow” in the title.

What’s with bands dropping their names recently.

Pedro the Lion will now be going just by David Bazan.

The One Am Radio will now be called just Hrishikesh Hirway.

I did my Christmas radio show today. It had all tracks that were Christmas songs, mentioned Christmas, had a titled including the word “Christmas”, by a band called The Christmas, or had a musical quote of a Christmas carol.

Here’s the playlist.

I started with Johnny Cash, the best way to start, then went into a nice wind band Christmas song, then the indie Christmas music, to the Motown/ early R&B Christmas music, and back to the indie before I did a couple “by request” and novelty songs to finish up.

I also managed to put some 30 seconds or so of dead air before the first Sufjan track. You’d think I’d be pretty good at this stuff after being on the radio over three years. Not so!

I also have a special treat for you: the show in mp3 form! Thanks once again to Jesse for hosting it.

Merry Christmas all.

I did my radio show this morning. I went through my top 15 albums of 2005, from number 15 to number 1. The playlist is here.

Here’s the list:

1. Illinois Sufjan Stevens
2. Takk Sigur Ros
3. All Day [EP] Mates of State
4. Pixel Revolt John Vanderslice
5. The Sunset Tree The Mountain Goats
6. Veneer Jose Gonzalez
7. Dignity and Shame Crooked Fingers
8. All Harm Ends Here Early Day Miners
9. Woman King [EP] Iron & Wine
10. Plans Death Cab for Cutie
11. Tiny Cities Sun Kil Moon
12. I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning Bright Eyes
13. s/t 13 & God
14. The Great Destroyer Low
15. Devils and Dust Bruce Springsteen

I made the list four times and it was different every time. This was the last. So it’s more like my top 15 albums of 2005 for December 14-15, 2005. Something like that.

Albums that were close: Set Free American Analog Set, Bodies and Minds Great Lake Swimmers, Set Yourself on Fire Stars.

Slightly disappointing albums that would have made the list if they were as good as I’d expected them to be: On My Way to Absence Damien Jurado, Stubbs the Zombie Sountrack, What Comes After the Blues Magnolia Electric Company, In the Reins Calexico and Iron & Wine.

If you haven’t heard that some new old Neutral Milk Hotel material has surfaced or if you have but don’t know where to find the recordings, you ain’t no picasso has step-by-step instructions to getting all the current crop.

If you haven’t heard of Neutral Milk Hotel, Familiarized! Yourself! Now! I still think In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is easily the best (and most important, to me) album from the last ten years.

As other people have noted, Walk the Line is a very good movie. The leads do a fantastic job.

Go see it!

I found out that Andrew Kenny of American Analog Set was at one point a PhD candidate in Biochemistry at Columbia before he took time off to do more music. That’s pretty badass.

There was this girl I had a crush on for most of Spring 2003. We went to concerts together. I made her a mixtape, because we all know that mixtape=love (these guys think so too).

I found a copy I’d made yesterday while organizing my CDs. I’d forgotten about it completely but now I’m listening to it at work. I probably made this early May 2003.

The tracklist:

1. Lion’s Mane – Iron and Wine
2. Ohio – Damien Jurado
3. New Partner – Palace Brothers
4. Accident – Clem Snide
5. I See a Darkness – Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy
6. Most of October, All of November – P:ano
7. Silvery Light of a Dream, Pt II – the Apples in stereo
8. If We Can Land a Man on the Moon, Surely I Can Win Your Heart – Beulah
9. Hideaway – Olivia Tremor Control
10. A Duel Will Settle This – Mates of State
11. Sleep the Clock Around – Belle & Sebastian
12. Summer is Coming – Matt Pond PA
13. Away, Into the Light – One AM Radio
14. Who Am I? – Seldom
15. Bad Diary Days – Pedro the Lion
16. No Solid Ground – ms. john soda
17. This Place is a Prison – The Postal Service
18. Consequence – The Notwist
19. Ruby’s Wishes – Unwed Sailor
20. Stanley Kubrick – Mogwai

It’s a nice mix of songs. I still listen to and like most of these songs and bands quite a bit.

I made it on a friend’s computer because I didn’t have a laptop yet so I copied all the songs to the computer individually and then made the CD from that. She loved it; she bought three CDs of bands on the CD within a week because she liked them so much.

She was not smitten with me, though.

I still buy lots of CDs, despite the fact that it’s soooo 90s. I bought one of those 128 CD cases today and transfered all the CDs I’ve bought since I moved out here into it (plus a couple from before when I moved). Turns out it almostly exactly filled the booklet.

There were a number of CDs I’d forgotten that I had and at least a few that I know I have but can’t find:

• Ghost of Great Highway by Sun Kil Moon found it!
• Emblems by Matt Pond PA
• Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens (the case is here but the CD is not!)

Can anyone take a picture or tell me what is on the CD itself for Seven Swans?

I am finally having the opportunity to write up the John Vanderslice (the nicest guy in indie rock) at the Independent a week and a half ago.

When JV was on my radio show in August, he said he’d put me on the guestlist (plus a guest nogal!) if I emailed him about a week before the show. I did and he did. (He also sent me Pixel Revolt following the show, so I figure I owe him at least $30 for the tickets and that.)

I went down with Bokoch and Tom-I-guess-his-name was (a friend of Mike’s). We drove around for a while looking for parking (which always happens when I go to the Independent). We wanted to have some dinner right near the club and we found Brother-in-Law’s BBQ #2. They were out of brisket and some other stuff, but we got the ribs and they turned out to be good. It’s a very no-nonsense type of place, which I liked. I’d recommend it if you’re down in that area. I gave Gumbeaux a call as we headed over to the Independent and he met us there. We met a couple nice people in line because we had some extra tickets (Gums and Bokoch both bought tickets (Bokoch three) and I had my extra) so we gave our tickets to them and they bought us beers. Not a bad trade…

I’m not going to waste any writing on the openers, just to say that they were something to bare rather than enjoy. I had seen John Vanderslice before, but only as an opener for Pedro the Lion and, of course, solo on my radio show. This was my first time seeing him for his band and since I bought albums and became familiar with some of his music.

(Before JV even came on, I saw that Ian Bjornstad would be playing a converted Wurlitzer 206A with the top removed from the base. After the show I saw him outside of the club and as I was walking past I pointed to him and said “Nice 206A!” He laughed.)

JV and co. (they were calling themselves John Vanderslice and the Photographs for this tour) went only pretty late, I guess close to 11:40. I was a bit restless by then, but the music settled me down pretty quickly. One thing that I noticed immediately was how good it sounded, which other people have noted. He toured with his own sound engineer and religiously does sound checks at every venue. They were also finishing up a 20-some date tour so they were really tight. JV and the rest seemed to be just so happy to be home. Dave Broecker, the bass player, sang harmonies and was spot on in both pitch and matching JV’s voice. It basically sounded like JV was doing his own harmonies. Matt Cunitz who plays a lot of the crazy keyboards like mellotron and celeste on JV’s records was not touring with the band, but brought a few keyboards and played with them for the night.

They played a marathon set. Not Bruce Springsteen-marathon, but 24 or so songs and 1.5 hours. JV announced quite a bit through the set that he didn’t like encores so he was just going to play every song the band new and then stop playing. They played a wide range of songs, but a lot from the last two, so I was familiar with most of them. I’m having a hard time at this point recalling which were my favorites of the night. He didn’t play what are quite possibly my two favorites from Pixel Revolt, which are “Peacocks in a Video Rain” and “Dead Slate Pacific.” That might be the only negative point of the whole night.

Besides the concert being awesome the big bonus for the night was that they were recording the show that night and that it’d be up on JV’s site sometime in December. I’ll link to it once it’s posted.

That’s right, it’s a return of the cover’s contest, with some slight changes.

A reminder of the rules and the changes thereto:

1. Andy, Dave or I are the lead for the week. The lead picks the song to cover for the week. The lead rotates every week.
2. Anyone may submit covers. They are due two weeks after the start of the contest. (Note the change!)
3. There will be voting each week on the best cover and most original covers for the week.

The idea behind having two weeks to do covers isn’t, in my mind, really to spend more time on the cover, but to have more time for other things.

I also want to have a little bit each week about why the lead has chosen that song.

And now, the cover for contest #10
This week’s song is Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson (Original).

What Adrian has to say about Smooth Criminal:

I know this song so well and I’ve heard it so many times and yet I don’t know it at all. My understanding of the lyrics is completely wrong.

Submissions for this contest will be due by midnight (local time) Monday, Nov. 14.

I was in the City yesterday hanging with Gumbeaux near the Haight so I went to Amoeba and got a few CDs:

• Iron & Wine and Calexico In the Reins
• Stubbs the Zombie [Soundtrack] bunch of indie and mainstream bands doing covers of 50s songs for a video game soundtrack
• Low and the Dirty Three In the Fishtank
• Sigur Ros Takk
• Matt Pond PA Several Arrows Later

I should probably not buy any more CDs for a while…

I’m a bit sick. Both of my roommates were sick last week and now I am. I thought I could squeeze by without getting what they had but the late night/ early morning today was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m going to go to sleep in a minute here.

The Steelers just squeeked out a win over the Ravens. They really need to stop taking these games to the final minute/ seconds like that. It’s not good for my heart.

I went to two concerts this weekend: Jens Lekman at the Rickshaw Stop on Saturday and the American Analog Set at Bottom of the Hill. Both really quite good shows. I’m going to write a post about them when I don’t really need to get some sleep and get not-sick.

You may leave your comments proclaiming your undying love for me. Also (if you’re female) you may leave your email address or other contact information. (If you’re male) you may leave contact information of available female friends.

starting a few days ago, you can get a free trial of the Smithsonian Global Sound website. The promotion runs from Oct. 24 to November 23. Smithsonian Global Sound has something like 35,000 songs, most of which are field recordings from around the world. You can sort by type of music and instrument and make playlists on the site. I could make a playlist of all the bagpipe music they have from Europe, for instance.

You can’t download the files but you can stream all the music you want.

This has probably been up for a while but Hirishikesh Hirway’s The One Am Radio has made a video for “Witness.” In a way it’s one of the best video’s I’ve seen. I like the song more because of the video and it has a story I really like too. It’s about kickball and love. Hrishikesh can be seen a few times during the video, most notably as the first baserunner. Anyway, it’s worth watching.

Strangely, I’ve bought lots of things in the last 24 hours. First I got a call from African Hut to say that the goods I had ordered in mid-August had come in and they were sending them. Then, later in the day I decided to pick up that Mark Kozelek/ Sun Kil Moon Modest Mouse covers record from Insound at which point I found that you could answer a stupid quiz and get 25% off your whole order, so I got a few things there. Then, this morning, I read that there’s a new 7″ Half-Handed Cloud/ Sufjan Stevens EP out today so I decided to pick that up and noticed something else while I was at the Asthmatic Kitty website.

So, the full haul:

• a case of Savanna Dry Cider, originally meant to be consumed with Jon Werberg, but that will do just fine now.
• 1/2 lb of biltong
• 1 can of guava halfs (or as I call it, 1 can of pure heaven)
• If You’re Feeling Sinister by Belle & Sebastian. I’m finally picking up a CD copy of this. ($8.99 minus 25%!) I now have all the B&S albums on CD.
• The Exquisite Death of Saxon Shore by Saxon Shore. I liked their previous album and decided to give this one a try.
• Summer in the Southeast by Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. The first time I heard Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy in any form was live at Club Laga. I’ve wanted a live recording ever since and now he’s coming out with one. Pre-order for November 15.
• Bodies and Minds by Great Lake Swimmers. I liked GLS’s debut when it came through the station. This effort is apparently good, so I thought I’d pick it up. (What was I thinking last night? I never buy this many “gamble” albums at one time.)
• Tiny Cities by Sun Kil Moon. Aforementioned Modest Mouse covers album. Pre-order for Nov. 1 though I think I’ve heard they’ve started shipping them.
• What’s the Remedy by Half Handed Cloud. Aforementioned collaborative effort with Sufjan Stevens. Vinyl 7″.
• Sufjan Stevens Illinois shirt. They didn’t have them when the concert tour came through here in July but they wore them on stage and boy were they hot.

So yeah, that’s me going crazy. I’ll be getting piles of stuff over the next few weeks though!

When we have parties we have music playing just about everywhere, including the bathroom. Up until now, we’ve had Motown in the bathroom, the playlist for which I’ve written about before.

This time we decided to change it up a bit. Indie rock was the thought. I made a pretty awesome playlist of songs people might know along with some they’re guarenteed to not know. Not too hard, not too soft. Some old, some new. I stayed (mostly) away from the depressing songs I sometimes play on my radio show. This is a party after all! I think this is sort of what my radio show would sound like on the best day if I decided to not play any depressing music and wasn’t worried about over-playing songs that you can hear on commercial radio.

Well here it is:

• Man-Revolutionary! by Rogue Wave
• Evil by Interpol
• Hard to Find by American Analog Set
• Peacocks in the Video Rain by John Vanderslice
• Scenic Pastures by Archers of Loaf
• Marching Bands of Manhattan by Death Cab for Cutie
• The Party by Matt Pond PA
• All of November, Most of October by P:ano
• Penelope by Pinback

(more…)

Matt Pond PA was on Conan last night. Anyone see them? I recorded it on my “tivo” (what I call my VCR), but haven’t watched it yet.

U2 is the only guest on Conan on Thursday night. I’m going to tune in, if I can stay away, to watch. They’ve been really good on SNL in the past couple of years.

Death Cab for Cutie does a a pretty interesting interview with the Onion AV club.

Also from largeheartedboy, Nick Hornsby talks to the Boss.

NPR did an interesting piece on the singing/ playing of “Sweet Caroline” (by Neil Diamond) in the 8th inning at Fenway Park.

There is a song that is good and you might forget this fact.

It is “Love is a Battlefield” by Pat Benatar. When I listen to this song, I want to sing along. I also want to dance, but not if you’re looking. It’s got a great structure (except for the spoken word part at the beginning, but that can be forgiven), the way the bridge comes in and the song builds back up.

Thanks for reminding me of this fact go to Helene via Dug.

What’s with soundtracks these days? There are some really good ones!

The latest is the Thumbsucker soundtrack. It’s got about 20 new songs from the Polyphonic Spree and three Elliott Smith songs, one of which (”Troubled” originally by Cat Stevens) is previously unreleased. Here’s the story of the soundtrack, how it came to be these two artists on the soundtrack.

On the first listen, it’s real good!

And by films I mean that in the literal sense, of captured, originally, on film.

And by documentary, I mean documenting real events.

I saw three recently:

1. NFL Film’s History of the Steelers NFL Films used to have a weekly show called “This is the NFL” and I would watch it many weeks, even before I was much of a football fan, just because they had beautiful footage and the sound, especially of the impacts, was incredible. There’s something about watching football on film that’s great. I liked this DVD a lot. I learned a bunch about the pre-70s Steelers and there were many interesting interviews with former players and coaches and whatnot. I also saw that there is quite a symbiotic relationship and feelings of duty and mutual respect between the Rooneys (the family that owns the Steelers) and the Team, the Team and the Fans, the Fans and the Rooneys. My one sort of complaint about the film was that it glossed over the big losses. An intricate part of the story of the Steelers, at least over the last decade, has been some big losses, I feel. Definitely worth watching if you’re a Steelers fan or a fan of football in general.
2. Low in Europe Dave gave this to me for my birthday. This shows some great footage and interviews of the band on a tour of Europe following the release of Trust. Maybe I just haven’t looked for many interviews of Low, but it seems that they haven’t been interviewed much, so it’s nice to see some more in depth coverage of their lives in this movie. There’s also some great footage of the band playing live; one of my favorites is a couple acoustic songs at a radio station in Frankfurt. The film ends with them playing at the Union Chapel in London, which no longer hosts shows, but while it did was a fantastic place to see a band like Low, as Andy or I can attest to. Worth watching for fans of Low or if you’re interested in becoming one.
3. Drive Well, Sleep Carefully The Death Cab for Cutie tour documentary. This close to 90 minutes of interviews and performances from a tour last year. The interviews seemed a bit lacking and single-tracked, but there’s pretty good pacing and editting between the interview portions and the song portions. The individual performances of the songs vary in how good they are. It’s worth watching if you’re a fan or are just an OC watching hipster.

The song for last week was Photobooth by Death Cab for Cutie.

The votes went like this:
Best Cover:
Adrian 3
Dave 2

Most Original:
Adrian 0
Dave 5

Congrats to Dave and me.

Alright kiddos, here we go.

The entries in the Covers Contest for this week’s song, Photobooth by Death Cab for Cutie (Original):

• Adrian
• Dave

Listen and vote for the best and most original cover.

The results for last week’s contest, the original for which was Matter by boom bip:
Best cover:
Adrian 0
Andy 1
Dave 2
Jesse 4

Most Original:
Adrian 1
Andy 0
Dave 0
Jesse 6

Good job, Jesse.

One last announcement for this post: We’ve decided to take a break for a bit. We may be back in a few weeks. Dave didn’t seem to have trouble finishing these but I’ve been scheduling my weeks around these because they take me a lot of time and Andy’s been having trouble getting them done, as you may have noticed. Hopefully you’ll see some original output from the three in the near future as well. If anyone would like to make their own cover contest with themselves, I’ll post a link to the result, just let me know. I can even pick a song for you to cover, if you’d like.

There’ll be a covers contest post next week to recap the results from the voting this week.

This week’s cover contest was for the song Matter by boom bip (Original)

entries!

• Adrian*
• Andy
• Dave
• Jesse

*I’d like to note that this one is not in stereo. It was done with one mic—banjo and vocals at the same time—all the way through, no overdubs or patch-ins.

Listen and vote for the best and most original cover. We have lots of entries this week so lots of votes would be good!

The results for last week’s cover of Consequence by the Notwist were:
Best:
Adrian 3
Dave 0

Most Original:
Adrian 3
Dave 0

Not that many votes but a clear mandate for ME. weeeeeeeeeeeee

The song for next week is Photobooth by Death Cab for Cutie (Original)

I confirmed today that John Vanderslice will be playing on my radio show in the 8am hour on August 25th, 2005. I’m really excited.

In the meantime check out this track from his new album, Pixel Revolt, coming out August 23rd.

Trance Manual – John Vanderslice

There is this part about 2/3 the way through where there’s this awesome plucked string part that adds to the hand bell part and then another string part on top of it.

The cover for this week was Consequence by the Notwist. (Original version).

Here are the entries so far:

• Adrian*
• Dave

*best with headphones or stereo, like usual.

Andy may have one to add tonight. If you want to hold off voting for mine until you’ve heard his as well, that’s okay.

You may listen and vote.

Covers contest #6 Shape of My Heart by Backstreet Boys
Best Cover:
Adrian 2
Andy 2
Dave 3

Most Original Cover:
Adrian 4
Andy 3
Dave 0

Looks like Dave and I squeezed out narrow victories. Thanks for the votes!

Andy was also the chooser for this coming week’s song (cover’s contest #8) so currently we have no song for next week. This may be the end of the cover’s contest.

Update 1: The song for cover’s contest #8 is the Matter by boom bip (with Nina Nastasia) (Original).

Update 2: Added Dave’s cover above.

Update 3: Andy’s not doing a version of “Consequence” so go ahead and vote. I’ve gotta stop being nice and make the deadline the deadline.

Due to some confusion, it’s a bit late, but we have our first non-Dave/Andy/Adrian version of a cover contest song. It’s from Alan and it’s right here, a cover of “Shape of My Heart” by the Backstreet Boys. It’s not going to be on the voting, but take a listen.

Two days left on “Consequence” if you want to do a version of that.

So I’m thinking about starting an mp3 blog. Maybe brandnewcanada.com. I think it’s be fun. I don’t currently have the bandwidth, I don’t think. If you happen to be overflowing with bandwidth and wouldn’t mind hosting a blog and the mp3s, then let me know. Or maybe I’ll set up freshmaker as a server again.

Meanwhile, here’s a good mp3. It’s a Portland, OR band called Jaime and Becky (though I think they’re originally from Minnesota). We got their CD at the station. This is a standout track. Nice arpegiatted guitar, great vocal melodies and harmonies (and blending of the two voices and the whatnot). Some totally kickin’ cello and glockenspiel parts during the chorus. The chorus is really really good. I don’t usually like female fronted bands (with a few exceptions, e.g. Cat Power), and two female vocalists seemed like it’d be too much, but these two pull it off really well.

“Midwest” by Jaime and Becky.

You can also listen to this song (and a couple more) at their myspace site.

I’d like to write such a song for western PA.

This guy has compiled a bunch of mp3s of indie darlings doing top 40 hits. Some are pretty great.

(I don’t know if any will be as good as Andy’s version of Shape of My Heart—not to show favorites or anything).

I was thinking about some CDs that I used to listen to lots at the MIT music library. I’d listen to a whole lot of fiddle music. One was called My Love is in America and was the recording of the Boston College Fiddle Festival which had some of the greats like Kevin Burke and Liz Carrol on it. I couldn’t find it online, but then I checked the label, Green Linnet, and not only did they have it, but it was $4. You can listen to it streaming on their site too. It’s lower-fi than I remembered, but it’s got a ton of energy and some great songs.

Another great CD was Green Fields of America Live in Concert (with a lot of great Irish American musicians). It’s also on Green Linnet, but I couldn’t find it on their site. I called them up and it turns out that they have about 5 copies left. I got that for $10.

And currently they have free shipping (for standard shipping at least) so two CDs for $14 is pretty good.

The songs for this week was Shape of my Heart by the Backstreet Boys. (Original here).

The entries are as follows:

• Dave
• Adrian
• Andy

Some good stuff there.

Listen and vote.

The song for covers contest #7 is Consequence by the Notwist. (Original mp3 here).

The results for last week’s votes (for covers of Flying Pizza by Swearing at Motorists).
Best Cover:
Adrian 1
Andy 1
Dave 2

Most Original Cover:
Adrian 3
Andy 1
Dave 0

I’d like to point out that Andy did not submit a cover so even though I left him in the poll (out of sheer convenience) whoever voted for his cover is dumb.

In other news, Dave and I are the big winners, though Andy was apparently more original than dave when not submitting a cover at all. OH SNAP, dave!

Last week’s cover song was Suspicious Minds by Elvis. The voting went like this:
Best cover:

• Adrian 1
• Andy 3
• Dave 2

Most original:

• Adrian 1
• Andy 2
• Dave 3

Andy and Dave are the big winners.

This week’s song is Flying Pizza by Swearing at Motorists (Original mp3).

The entries:

• Adrian*
• Dave

*like many of my covers, but particular with this one, listening in stereo is better.

Listen to them and vote for the best and most original here.

Next week’s song is Shape of My Heart by the Backstreet Boys. (Original mp3) (Note: this is Dave’s choice and the owner and proprietor of adrian is rad and adrianbischoff.com disavows any association with the choice of this song.)

Alrighty.

Results for contest #3 which was Sassafras Roots by Green Day (Original).
Best Cover:
Adrian 1
Andy 1
Dave 2

Most Original Cover:
Adrian 3
Andy 0
Dave 1

So it looks like Dave takes the best cover and my all-casio rendition takes the most original.

Here are the entries for this week:
Andy
Dave
Adrian

The original is Suspicious Minds by Elvis.

Please listen and vote for the best and most original. I’d like to get the voting numbers up a little after a slightly disappointing showing last week.

The song for contest #5 is Flying Pizza by Swearing at Motorists (original). Take a listen. Just a reminder that though the songs are chosen by Andy, Dave and I, anyone can enter. Entries are due next Monday night at midnight.

[Update:] Anyone have ideas for new or different voting categories? Are the current ones good or would something else be better? Or should I add categories?

I’m sitting in the W20 (the student center) at MIT, burning about an hour before I leave for the airport. I got in Saturday morning early and I’ve been going just about non-stop since then. I hope I sleep some on the airplane because I need to get some rest before I go back to work tomorrow morning. My goodness.

The itinerary, in somewhat chronilogical order:

• Brookline Lunch with Jesse. Cheap good diner food.
• hangin out at Jesse’s place. Watched The Breakfast Club
• Newbury Comics. Bought something for Logan Sandmeyer of duckmeup.com
• Pour House for half priced hamburger night with Elmo, Snellla, Sam, Jesse and Mim. I got the double Wisconsin, of course.
• Beers on the roof of tEp
• My Summer of Love at Kendall Square Cinema with mim and Jesse
• lunch at Thorton’s Fenway Grill with Abe and Amrys, followed by a game at Fenway with the same plus Colin.
• FroYo at Ankara with Abe and Colin
• Bukowski’s in Inman with Wally, Mim, Indy, Farhad, Wumph, Mim and Jesse.
• Get the new Night Rally and Clickers split 12″ from Farhad at April Fog.
• Breznev’s with Wally, Agi, Morton, Sarah, Blake, Paladin, Kraken, Mim, Andyl, Jesse, and Qwgbo. 2 Peking Ducks is a whole lot of fat!
• Newbury Comics (this time picking up the new Stars CD, a 2 CD Neil Diamond Set, and the old Time Are a Changin’ CD by Dylan) and a Frappe at JP Licks with mim.
• the 4th of July Part at tEp. The fireworks, despite other reports, were fantastic and very well done. The music selection in parts could be overlooked.
• Lunch with Amrys, stop by to see Georgeji (Prof. Ruckert), errands at my Boston bank, buying an MIT ringer T at the Coop, drink a dr. pepper while blogging this.
• get a sandwhich for the plane, hop on the T

Last week I wrote about the covers contest #2 entires. The results are as follows:
Best Cover:
Adrian 3
Andy 2
Dave 2

Most Original:
Adrian 1
Andy 1
Dave 5

Looks like Dave and I are the big winners for this week.

This past week’s cover was Sassafras Roots by Green Day. (Original).

The entries:
Andy
Adrian
David

Listen to them and vote for the best and most original cover here

The song for covers contest #4 is Suspicious Minds by Elvis. (Original). Entries will be taken until next Tuesday. Start recording!

Results of the voting for covers contest #1 entries:
Best cover:
Adrian 1
Andy 5
Dave 1

Most Original Cover:
Adrian 1
Andy 1
Dave 5

So the big winners were Andy and David.

This week’s song is Wait by Secret Stars (original). Here are the entries:

• Adrian
• Andy
• Dave

Vote here for the Best and Most Original cover version.

Covers Contest #3: Sassafras Roots by Green Day (original) Entries will be accepted until next Tuesday.

Last week, I announced the Covers Contest.

A brief recap of the idea of the contest:

• Andy, Dave or I are the lead for the week. The lead picks the song to be covered. He posts the original. The song will be announced each Tuesday and linked here.
• We each do cover versions of this song by the following Monday and post them online as mp3s.
• You, the readership, listens and votes.
• Lead rotates to the next person and he picks a new song.

The original this week was Never Ending Math Equation by Modest Mouse.

Listen:

• Andy
• Adrian*
• David

*[update: new mix]

Personally, I found it pretty hard to conceive of and record a cover in a week–especially because it took until Saturday to get my laptop to a point where it’d run Protools again. A week definitely doesn’t give you time to make things perfect.

Vote for the best and most original cover. Voting will be open until next tuesday.

You can also comment here about the songs, if you’d like.

Covers Contest #2:
Andy’s choice. Original: Wait by the Secret Stars. Entries for this will be accepted until the end of the day next Monday.

Dave Franusich, Andy Chadwick and myself, the members of the seminal Upper St. Clair indie folk band Where’s Luke? have started a new competition. It’s called the covers competition. It is a weekly competition and this week is the first week.

The idea of the project is this:

• Andy, Dave or I are the lead for the week. The lead picks the song to be covered. He posts the original. The song will be announced each Tuesday and linked here.
• We* each do cover versions of this song by the following Monday and post them online as mp3s.
• You, the readership, listens and votes (either by email or on another webpage with little buttons). Voting categories will probably be Best and Most Original.
• Lead rotates to the next person and he picks a new song.

*I’m thinking about opening up submissions to any one that wants to do a version…The lead would still be one of us three, though.

This week’s song has been picked.
Covers Contest #1
Song: “Neverending Math Equation”
Original Artist: Modest Mouse.

the original

Dave already has his version done (that’s actually what sort of sparked the idea). Usually the versions will be posted simultaneously.

I went to Aquarius Records while I was in the city yesterday. I was surprised at how small it was for a well-renowned record store.

The haul and first impressions:

• the Mountain Goats the Sunset Tree I really like this. I think it’s his best studio album (that is, non-boombox album). I’d heard it before, but bought it because I liked it so much. The songs are good as are the production (thanks, John Vanderslice) and the orchestration.
• Death Cab for Cutie John Byrd EP Limited edition EP sent to special independent record stores like Aquarius and Amoeba. Recorded live. Pretty good from first listen.
• 13 & God s/t This is the collaborative album between the Notwist and Themselves [I told this to someone and they wondered how that worked out and I laughed. It'd be really PoMo if the Notwist had made a collaborative album with themselves.] Good. Not what I expected but I didn’t really know what to expect. More experimental, more hip hoppy (vocals), less rocky/ poppy.
• the Album Leaf Seal Beach EP [reissue] Take a very good EP and reissue it with five bonus tracks. Yeah, it’s good.

I’d heard this song a few times (well parts of it, I’d usually switch the station or whatever) where there’s this sort of drunken shout frat boy anthem that goes “Beverly Hills! That’s where I want to be!”

I don’t pay attention to the pop music that much, so I just figured it was some one-hit crap band that makes crap music like that and for some reason the big radio stations played it because they do that.

Well! Turns out it’s Weezer. Oh man. Where have “My Name is Jonas” and “The World Has Turned And Left Me Here” gone?

Me and the roomies are having a party tonight. (yes, I know that sentence that is grammatically incorrect and I don’t care.) I am preparing a Serious Kick Ass Motown playlist. [Technically Sam Cooke and a couple other of these artists weren't on the Motown Label but they're close enough.] People will want to shake their bootie.

Go ahead and prepare this play list at home at tell me that your bootie doesn’t shake.

Without further delays, here is the playlist:

1. My Girl The Temptations
2. The Tracks Of My Tears Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
3. Baby I Need Your Lovin’ The Four Tops
4. Don’t Mess With Bill The Marvelettes
5. Cupid Sam Cooke
6. I Want You Back The Jackson 5
7. Chain Gang Sam Cooke
8. Twisting the Night Sam Cooke
9. I Heard It Through The Grapevine Marvin Gaye
10. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) Marvin Gaye
11. (What A) Wonderful World Sam Cooke
12. Going To A Go-Go Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
13. Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
14. I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) The Four Tops
15. Jimmy Mack Martha And The Vandellas
16. Someday We’ll Be Together Diana Ross & The Supremes
17. You Can’t Hurry Love Diana Ross & The Supreme
18. I Second That Emotion Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
19. Please Mr. Postman The Marvelettes
20. This Old Heart Of Mine The Isley Brothers
21. Stop! In The Name Of Love Diana Ross & The Supremes
22. The Tears of a Clown Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
23. My Guy Mary Wells
24. Twenty-Five Miles Edwin Starr
25. Dancing In The Street Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
26. Where Did Our Love Go Diana Ross & The Supremes
27. Ain’t No Mountain High Enough Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

Some song names you might not recognize, but you’d probably recognize the tunes, that is, if you listened to oldies/ motown stuff.

Here’s another sufjan song for yunz. It’s one of my favorites off of the yet-to-be-released Illinois. So delicate. So well orchestrated. Such a sweet guitar part.

The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! by Mr. Sufjan Stevens. (He’s so dreamy!)

There’s a sort of breakdown part where most of the instrumentation pulls back about 3:47 in that reminds me a whole lot of another song. I could figure it out for the longest time.

The answer is somewhat embarrassing and I think it may be one of those things that if you know to look for it (ie if you don’t notice it but I tell you) it’ll be all that you notice, so I’ll put it behind the screen, so to speak, in case you don’t want to know.

(more…)

stereogum has a nice live cover of the Magnetic Field’s “Strange Powers.”

Sufjan Stevens has a new album coming out called Illinois, the follow-up to his Michigan album. Only forty-eight states to go!

Anyway, because I’m just that cool, I’ve hunted down two of the 22 track on the world wide interweb.

Drop7 has “Chicago”.

And this guy has “Come On, Feel the Illinoise”. (via brooklynvegan).

They’re both good. Much more in the full orchestrated style of Michigan than the mostly banjo, non-state-album Seven Swans. And both are over six minutes long. I don’t think this’ll be the pattern for the album because twenty-two six minute tracks would be a two hour and twelve minute album!

(And we know that it’s one disc.)

(And I like how I spelled out the numbers in this post. Doesn’t it make it annoying to read?)

I saw the movie In Good Company at Flicks at Stanford.

The 10pm shows at Flicks are fun: They put out newspapers and you ball it up and chuck it at people. Fun!

Quick plot summary: 26 year old up and comer ad exec, played by Topher Grace, become 51 year old old school ad exec, played by Dennis Quiad’s boss. Scarlet Johanssen plays the daughter of the old ad guy. She starts dating the young ad man without either telling the dad. Hijinx ensue!

I was surprised by actually how good it was. I didn’t expect it to be horrible, but I didn’t expect it to be good either. There were some moments that were genuinely very funny, mostly ones that were also very awkard. The story isn’t a break through story that no one has ever told, but it was good enough and only mostly predictable. The right people changed and the right people got their comeupance. I would say border-line theater material, but probably better as a rental.

The film has three songs by Iron and Wine on the soundtrack. Two were from the album Our Endless Numbered Days and one was brand new previously unreleased. It came on during the credits. Andyl and Dylan walked out and I just stood there and listened.

When I got home I found that it’s called “Trapeze Swinger” and it’s over nine minutes long in it’s full version. It’s also only available from iTune Music Store as part of the In Good Company Soundtrack. Well f that.

It turns out it’s available here. Read the comments to see how to actually download it (annoying! but worth it). It doesn’t sound like some of the other Iron and Wine songs (well sort of, it mostly does). It’s long; it has a loopy feel; the instrumentation builds; there are backwards loops in there (definitely not trad folk instrumentation there). Oh, and did I mention I’ve listened to it about fifteen times today because I like it a lot.

The first line of each verse just works so well. “Please remember me happily/ fondly/ at halloween etc.” Eh, just listen to it.

With the Postal Service’s music appearing in just about every commercial on TV or radio currently and Give Up selling over 500,000 copies, which is huge for an indie album (100,000 is big for an indie album, many indie bands hope to sell around 15,000 copies of an album), I decided name a few other albums that you may like if you liked Give Up. The two elements brought together by the Postal Service are the electronica (IDM)-ish stuff by DNTEL aka Jimmy Tamborello and the indie rock/ pop by Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie).

The obvious:

• The Notwist Neon Golden This one is obvious because it is completely awesome. This was the first album that I heard that had electronic elements in it along with indie rock/ pop elements that I liked. If I didn’t like this, I might not have liked the rest of these (good albums have a tendency to open your ears and mind to more music). It is darker and has more depth, both lyrically and musically than Give Up (on which I only consider one song to have any real depth, “This Place is a Prison”, which is not to say I don’t like the album.) Neon Golden has many organic elements that have been sampled and twist: banjo, guitars, woodwinds (plenty of sax), voice, drums.
• DNTEL Life is Full of Possibilites This is obvious because the music is (mostly) by the same guy and it even has the beginnings of the Postal Service on it. The collaboration between DNTEL and Ben Gibbard started on the song “(This is) the Dream of Evan and Chan,” which is a standout track on this album.
• Styrofoam Nothing’s Lost Styrofoam has opened for the Postal Service, has collaborated/ remixed indie songs before (his version of Postman by American Analog Set is incredible), and on this, his latest album, he even includes vocals and guitars by Ben Gibbard on it. I tend to like Styrofoam’s stuff more than DNTEL’s solo stuff. He tends to be more melodic and glitchy while DNTEL tends to be more atmospheric and blippy.

The not-as-obivous:

• Her Space Holiday Young Machines One guy making somewhat depressing, but poppy records. He does all the music production and singing himself. Unless you think Ben Gibbard is too whiny when he sings, you’ll probably not like HSH’s vocals as much— they don’t have the range or melodic sense of Gibbard’s; they’re not in any sense bad though. Mostly electronic sounds with some organic ones throw in.
• ms john soda No P or D This would be in the “obvious” list if the album that were in question were Neon Golden. This band shares members with the Notwist. It’s somewhat hard to describe exactly the different in sound between them and the Notwist: I’d say more organic sounds and lighter/ less dark/ less experimental. Compared to the Postal Service, I’d say one of the main differences besides the use of organic sounds would be that Gibbard’s vocals are pretty warm whereas the vocals of Stefanie Boehm have a detached sound to them.
• The Album Leaf In a Safe Place It’s hard to classify this band. They have vocals on a few songs but many are instrumental. There are many orangic sounds: most of the tracks are based on riffs on a Rhodes and have real drum and guitar parts. They also often have heavily processed violin sounds and synthesized sounds and plenty of glitchy beats. Some very emotive music. A great album. Note: the earlier albums of this band don’t have any electronic stuff to them so if that’s what you’re looking for, don’t get those.
• V/A Monster’s of Morr Music A compliation/ sampler from the Berlin-based label with a few tracks each by B. Fleischmann, Lali Puna, Duo 505, the Go Find and Styrofoam. Rather than try to recommend an album by each of these groups, I’d just get this, listen and figure out which you’d want to persue more. B. Fleischmann is melodic electronica with few words. Duo 505 has him in it, but has some sweet nintendo-like samples and tends to be more rhythmic and driving than his solo stuff. Lali Puna is sort of electro-rock with solid guitar and bass and drums but with some electronic elements. The Go Find is guitar + electronic pop stuff and I’ve already talked about Styrofoam’s stuff.
• Aqueduct I Sold Gold This is quirky, often dark, bedroom electro synth pop. His lyrics are about such things as the influence of Guns N Roses on him and “packing” heat. It’s fun stuff.
• Four Tet Rounds This is not indie pop at all. This is purely computer produced. It does however have mostly organic sounds and is pretty melodic in nature. According to iTunes, I’ve played track four (”My Angel Rocks Back and Forth”) 90 times since August 1, 2003 and though I haven’t played it in a while, it’s still in my top 10 most played songs.
• the One Am Radio A Name Writ in Water This is glitchy, dark singer-songwriter stuff. It’s not really, but that’s probably the most effective way to describe it. Lots of acoustic guitar, violin, amospheric sounds and very intimate vocals.

Note: these are just some albums you might like. You might not like all of them. In fact there may be some you hate. Many of these bands have songs on their websites that you can listen to and get a feel for their music. Otherwise there are various forms of downloading music, both legal (Epitonic!) and otherwise.

I am not in South Africa; rather, I’m writing about my band with David Franusich entitled Greetings from Johannesburg.

The reason for writing is that it looks like we’ve finished the 6 song EP, finally. The mixes and mastering aren’t done but the writing and recording are.

MP3s of the songs are here if you’d like to listen.

The most recent changes were on the song Nashville, which I changed around on Saturday. On the other end of the spectrum, I haven’t touched Bitter in over a year and Thaw in over two.

You can comment on the songs, if you’d like. We also are looking for better titles for some of the songs and for the EP in general if you have ideas on those.

GQ, of all magazines, has an article about a giant Christian rock festival call Creation. It’s lengthy and sort of interesting.

As someone who’s never seen the appeal of “Christian rock,” even to Christians, I took some particular joy in this passage:

That’s the last thing I’ll be saying about the bands.

Or, no, wait, there’s this: The fact that I didn’t think I heard a single interesting bar of music from the forty or so acts I caught or overheard at Creation shouldn’t be read as a knock on the acts themselves, much less as contempt for the underlying notion of Christians playing rock. These were not Christian bands, you see; these were Christian-rock bands. The key to digging this scene lies in that one-syllable distinction. Christian rock is a genre that exists to edify and make money off of evangelical Christians. It’s message music for listeners who know the message cold, and, what’s more, it operates under a perceived responsibility�one the artists embrace�to “reach people.” As such, it rewards both obviousness and maximum palatability (the artists would say clarity), which in turn means parasitism. Remember those perfume dispensers they used to have in pharmacies�”If you like Drakkar Noir, you’ll love Sexy Musk”? Well, Christian rock works like that. Every successful crappy secular group has its Christian off-brand, and that’s proper, because culturally speaking, it’s supposed to serve as a stand-in for, not an alternative to or an improvement on, those very groups. In this it succeeds wonderfully. If you think it profoundly sucks, that’s because your priorities are not its priorities; you want to hear something cool and new, it needs to play something proven to please…while praising Jesus Christ. That’s Christian rock. A Christian band, on the other hand, is just a band that has more than one Christian in it. U2 is the exemplar, held aloft by believers and nonbelievers alike, but there have been others through the years, bands about which people would say, “Did you know those guys were Christians? I know�it’s freaky. They’re still fuckin’ good, though.” … In most cases, bands like these make a very, very careful effort not to be seen as playing “Christian rock.”… And here, if I can drop the open-minded pretense real quick, is where the stickier problem of actually being any good comes in, because a question that must be asked is whether a hard-core Christian who turns 19 and finds he or she can write first-rate songs (someone like Damien Jurado) would ever have anything whatsoever to do with Christian rock. Talent tends to come hand in hand with a certain base level of subtlety. And believe it or not, the Christian-rock establishment sometimes expresses a kind of resigned approval of the way groups like U2 … [These bands] take quiet pains to distance themselves from any unambiguous Jesus-loving, recognizing that this is the surest way to connect with the world (you know that’s how they refer to us, right? We’re “of the world”). So it’s possible�and indeed seems likely�that Christian rock is a musical genre, the only one I can think of, that has excellence-proofed itself.

Then again, it likely falls into the same trap that he accuses Christian rock of falling into: preaching to the converted. (I can’t imagine the average GQ reader to like Christian rock).

Much of the article is about five (I think five) crazy friends from West Virginia that the author meets and hangs out with. There are some interesting happenings.

I like that their relationship ends like this:

Darius said God bless me, with meaning eyes. Then he said, “Hey, man, if you write about us, can I just ask one thing?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Put in there that we love God,” he said. “You can say we’re crazy, but say that we love God.”

Overall the article is a pretty good read. It falls into some of the usual traps of misinterpreting Christians and Christianity, but surprisingly, the overall effect is not slamming either.

For Pedro the Lion fans or just music fans, give a listen to the Headphones. There’s a downloadable song and some songs you can stream from the album.

The Headphones is the synth+drums+vocals band of David Bazan (Pedro the Lion), TW Walsh (solo, PtL), and Frank Lenz (Starflyer 59).

It’s pretty exciting. It’s pretty crazy. The vocal melodies are all Bazan, and sound so familiar, but then I stop and listen to what’s backing him for a second and it’s a shock. No guitars. no guitars.

Ohboy!

The news is that Sufjan Stevens’ next album in his 50 States Project, Illinois, will be out July 5. This is the followup to Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State. (Seven Swans was in between, but it’s not part of the States Project.)

I really like Sufjan! He’s so good that his mp3s of Christmas songs are good enough to listen to in March.

I had Friday Night Lights from Netflix for a while and got around to watching it last night. I liked it. The screenwriters did a few clever things to fit some things (quotes/ thoughts) into the movie that weren’t said in the main action. Some of it was sensationalized from the book (which Odessans said was sensationalized from the reality) and some details were left out, but that’s to be expected. It’s pretty hard to condense four months of detailed story and backstory into a two hour movie. Tim McGraw did a really good job for his first acting role and the kids and Billy Bob Throton were good as well.

The Explosions in the Sky soundtrack was pretty awesome. I’d heard many of the tracks already, but they fit in a lot better in the context of the movie.

They’re releasing all of the Motown single ever on CD. The first volume, 1959-1961 is out. It’s 155 tracks and 6 discs. It’s expensive but I’ve been thinking about getting.

I imagine the 1961-1963 and 1963-1965 sets will be really awesome (assuming they keep going in the same pattern) and some of the later sets will be not as great.

Another awesome set that I want to get is Back to Mono a collection of Phil Spector’s work from 1958-1969.

for a day such as this.

It would seem so, except that it’s a depressing indie rock album by Seldom. I haven’t listened to this album much in the last two and a half years and it’s very strange to listen to it.

You see, Dear Reader, I listened to this album obsessively during the summer of 2002 when I was living in Stuttgart. Basically I listened to this and Neon Golden by the Notwist all summer since they were my only new music. When I listen to Neon Golden I hear the (awesome) music. When I listen to Romance I see those streets: the one going by Porcheplatz to Wollinstrasse in Zuffenhausen; the one going by the Bosch headquarters, Mauserstrasse and Behr buildings 3 and 4 from the Feuerbach S-Bahn station to work; the main street near the Hauptbahnhof and Stadtmitte. I’d listen to and from work on my portable CD player and sing along when there weren’t people close by; I’d listen when I went to the city center to see a movie on 4 Euro Tuesdays, buy something, or check my email at the internet cafe. It’s really very strange to listen to this album because in my mind it is so strongly associated with a few specific places in Stuttgart.

Perhaps sometime I’ll write about sense-related memories.

We watched Ray last night. Before I get started on the movie, I’d like to point out that it showcased the Wurlitzer electric piano, though his models were, I believe a 140 (around “What’d I Say”) and later a 200(A) (”Hit the Road, Jack”), not the 206A or the 203W. The movie was definitely worth seeing. The story is good; I’ve seen better man-stuggles-with-drugs stories and better man-overcomes-disabilities-despite-what-people-may-think and better man-cheats-on-wife-repeatedly-but-in-the-end-doesn’t-want-to-lose-her stories. But add some great music scenes in and you have a pretty good movie. Jamie Foxx just about is Ray Charles. There weren’t any points when I thought the actual Ray Charles was on the screen, but it was close. Does he deserve the Oscar? I don’t know. Take away the acting-just-like-Ray and you have a decent, but not incredible, guy-on-heroin, which I’ve seen better (um, Requiem for a Dream). And the acting-just-like-Ray is basically a spot-on impression. Guys at comedy clubs making $25 a night do spot-on impressions. Heck there was a kid at this Boy Scout camp that I went to that did a spot-on impression of Brett Weinheimer, the scout-in-charge of the whole camp, that was so good that he fooled many patrols into thinking that Brett was coming to a surpise inspection. Okay okay, Foxx is really good at doing Ray Charles and pretty good at the rest so maybe that’s good enough? Clint Eastwood was really good in Million Dollar Baby but he was probably too stoic in the role to (jennifer) garner (ha!) the award.

I also finished the book Friday Night Lights last night. I’d been stuck on a couple books a couple weeks ago while I was over at a coworkers house playing poker. He’d just finished Friday Night Lights so he lent it to me. The story is a reporter from a Philadelphia newspaper decided that he needed to write a book about high school football in the heartland and moved his family to Odessa, TX. He followed the team for a year and wrote this book. Fans are crazy about the Permian Panthers there and games against the cross town rivals will draw 20,000 fans (to a high school game!). There is a lot of pressure in this town that doesn’t have anything else going for it for the football team to win, but not just win, to go to State. The book was written by a reporter, a journalist, so that shows in both the way its told and also what is told; there is a lot of background to the football, of course, but also included is lots about the town’s economic and social and racial problems. All in all, it’s a pretty easy/ quick read, but it’s not as light as many sports books. I liked it. I would like to qualify a recommendation, however. a) I like sports stories, though I don’t read many of them. I read a lot of those Matt Christopher books as a kid. I was entralled by the BoSox’s story this year. b) I like it when people play for the love of the game. c) I know all about high school football and it’s importance to people. Upper St. Clair had (slightly) more going for it than just football and people didn’t live and die for the team, but it was a football school, in large part. Perhaps the only thing that people talked about as much was the musical in the spring. I never missed a game in high school (I was in the marching band, so I had to be there), including the freezing trip to State my junior year.

(There has been a movie made of Friday Night Lights and the Austin, Texas post-rock group Explosions in the Sky did the original soundtrack. I would sometimes play the soundtrack while reading the book, which is almost like watching the movie.}

I’ve been listening to this song by the Red House Painters called “I’m Sorry,” off of a John Denver Tribute album called Take Me Home and it could possibly be the most crushing song ever. Mark Kozelek’s voice imparts added melancholy to whatever he sings. It’s so good!

Will “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy” Oldham and Matt Sweeney will be in Baltimore at the Ottobar on April 25. It’s the last date of the tour.

Oh and Tarky, they’ll be in Boston at the Museum of Fine Arts on April 17. (And Pat, in Pittsburgh at the Rex Theater on April 14, if you’re interested)

I missed them at Amoeba (free!) a couple weeks ago because I was in Pittsburgh for the game.

The new (collaborative) album is pretty good from first listen. I’m reviewing it for the station.

“Solitary Man” originally by Neil Diamond is a good song, but the covers I’ve been listening to lately are better. Johnny Cash did a solid version on his American III: Solitary Man album. However, the one I like the best is Crooked Fingers off of their Resevoir Songs EP. The main instruments are banjo and tuba. Later, a dark organ part and brushed drums are added. This is the darkest version of the song with a depth in sonority that the others don’t. You should try to find this version if you can.

1. “Brick” by Ben Folds 5
2. “the Sweetest Thing” by U2
3. “mmm bop” by Hanson
4. “Gigantic” by the Pixies

Don’t ask. We had our weird moments.

So according to a news item at Pitchfork, the guy from Pedro the Lion, David Bazan, and one of the other current members of the band TW Walsh are going to release an album as the Headphones in May on Suicide Squeeze. They’re throwing away the guitars and playing it all on keyboards. It’s electronic, but not electronica so much. Apparently real, non-sequenced drums and such will also appear.

I’ve talked about Smokey Robinson’s Tracks of My Tears before. I still really like it and I’ve been listening to it a lot. One thing you’ll notice if you search for that song is that Smokey Robinson’s song Tears of a Clown might also come up. If you listen to it sounds quite a bit different (though obviously still Smokey Robinson) but the subject matter is very similar.

I decided to look at the two songs side by side.

They’re both about girls causing an internal sadness. Smiles are an outside facade. Both talk about tears in private; in Tracks of my Tears you can see the remnants of the tears if you look closely; in Tears of a Clown there is no public indication of the sadness. In both he refers to himself as a clown.

I just got heard about and got tickets for what could be a totally sweet concert. Are you ready for the line up? Are you ready? I don’t think you are.

But here goes: Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service; Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon and solo work; and Eric Bachman of Bachman Turner Overdrive— just kidding, he’s from the Archers of Loaf. I like all those bands and the solo work I’ve heard from the first two and solo stuff I usually like more than full band stuff, so I’m pretty excited. Additionally, it’s at Great American Music Hall, which is a great venue, especially for the acoustic stuff.

It’s a tsunami relief benefit concert. If benefiting tsunami relief is this good, I should give all my money.

I bought three tickets. Judit? Dale?

Other concerts I have tickets to or will probably soon:

• Early Day Miners 1/25 at
• Mates of State 2/23 at Slim’s (part of Noise Pop)
• the Polyphonic Spree 2/24 at Bimbo’s 365 (part of Noise Pop)
• Portastatic 2/25 at Bottom of the Hill (part of Noise Pop)
• Low with Pedro the Lion 3/29 at Great American Music Hall
• Magnolia Electric Company (formerly Songs: Ohia) 4/30 at Bottom of the Hill

Via my brother and others before that he got it from, there’s a new mash up that’s pretty good. It’s not a mash-up in the traditional sense like the Danger Mouse’s Grey Album or any of Dsico’s stuff, it’s not a mashing to unlike songs, melody of one with the background of the other. This one doesn’t take much talent at all, in fact. I could have probably made this mashup.

But it’s interesting nonetheless. It’s two Nickelback songs, one in the left chanel and one in the right and they match up really well. Note that one was probably pitch shifted and time compressed, so don’t be amazed that it’s in the same key or that the tempo is exactly the same, be amazed that the structure and relative timing of the songs are spot on.

When I first heard of this, I wasn’t going to even listen to it; I didn’t find it that interesting, but hearing the actual mash up is worth the couple minutes at least.

Without further ado, here it is.

A lot of people’s reactions seem to be that this is horrible. I don’t know. I think it’s sort of great that someone can make money twice off of the same song with slightly different packaging. There was never a claim that what was on pop radio was good.

I went to Amoeba today, which means I spent a lot of money on CDs.

CDs I’d heard a lot but didn’t own

• Pinback Summer in Abaddon[1]
• Elliot Smith From a Basement on a Hill[2]

CDs I don’t have but I have a pretty good idea what they’ll sound like and I’m pretty sure I’ll like

• Iron & Wine Passing Afternoon (EP)[3]
• Beulah Demo[4]

CDs that I’d heard good stuff about but hadn’t heard at all

• the Castinets Cathedral[5]

Fueling my recent Motown/ early R&B obsession

• Sam Cooke Portrait of a Legend[6]
• V/A EMI Music Publishing Presents Classic Songs of the Motown Era[7]

Folk

• V/A Selections from the Best of Broadside 1962-1988[8]
• V/A Smithsonian Folkways American Roots Collection[9]

Footnotes

[1] solid 3rd album from computer pop wizards
[2] made my top 17 of 2004. final album from this often depressed singer-songwriter
[3] turns out it’s not an EP (which would be Woman King, which is coming out in February). Rather this is the CD single with the last track from Our Endless Numbered Days. The other two songs on it are solid.
[4] lofi demos of what appears to be most of the Yoko album, which was basically ruined by the production.
[5] a well-reviewed disc on sufjan steven’s asthmatic kitty label.
[6] sam cooke is awesome. Among his fantastic songs are “You Send Me”, “Cupid”, “A Change is Gonna Come”, “Chain Gang” and “Don’t Know Much About History.” Not Motown (his music was put out, I think, by Abkco) and somewhat of an anomoly by writting his own songs.
[7] 4 discs of great music, from the Jackson 5 to Stevie Wonder to the Four Tops to the Temptations to Marvin Gaye.
[8] Put out by Smithsonian Folkways (always a good sign), this is a promo disc for a compilation of the magazine Broadside which published (in sheet music form) many of the greatest folk revival songs. People like Dylan and Phil Ochs and Pete Seegar submitted songs
[9] just a sampler of part of the great American music section of S/F.

(Seam is a great minimalist indie rock band from Chicago, active mostly from 94-99. They’re worth checking out if you haven’t heard them.)

I’ve been listening to Seam a lot lately, especially the middle two albums (the Problem with Me, which I know intimately, and Are you driving me crazy?, which I recognize all the songs on, but am not as familiar with), so I decided to poke around on the interenet to see what was up. I was surpised to see that they still have a website (well a fansite) and that it has some news in the past few years. I had given up Seam as totally bust but they actually seem (get it?? seem!) to have played once in 2003. Crazy. They haven’t toured the US since early 1999, I believe.

And another surprise was that Sooyoung Park, the lead of Seam, is in a new band called Ee. I’ll have to check them out.

There are bands that few people really liked when they were active but now get named dropped a lot. Slint was one of these bands and now they’re having a reunion tour and people are out of their minds. Then there are bands that people liked at the time, like Archers of Loaf and, to some extent, Seam, that no one mentions now. When’s the last time time you read a review that said a band’s sound harkened back to Seam? Weird.

[Update: haha. search and ye shall find. Here's a review that name drops Seam. There aren't many however. ]

12. Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens
11. Funeral by Arcade Fire
1. Sufjan Stevens at 7/31 Great American Music Hall
2. the Mates of State 2/6 at the Los Gatos Outhouse
8. Pedro the Lion with John Vanderslice 6/03 at Bottom of the Hill
3. Iron and Wine at Great American Music Hall
13. Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron and Wine
10. Damien Jurado 11/09 at Great American Music Hall
4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
5. the Cameraman (with Buster Keaton) at Stanford Theater with live organ accompaniment
6. the Polyphonic Spree 7/18 at Slim’s
15. Hero
17. Napoleon Dynamite free screening at Stanford
7. Arcade Fire Live at Museum of Television and Radio (archived by KEXP)
16. From a Basement on a Hill by Elliot Smith
14. Before Sunset
9. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring

• Buy a new starter for my car. The current one doesn’t like me.*
• Buy surplus electronic parts to fix Wurlitzer 206A Electronic Pianos (21+ of them!!!!!!!!!) at HSC
• Call Uhaul to make sure they have my reservation for a truck to move aformentioned keyboards.
• Write and send christmas cards
• Write liner notes for lauren owens’ Lauren6 mix CD and send CD
• Add comment preview to blog for Andy
• Open up my receiver and find the loose connection (the speakers go between soft and loud as I move the receiver around)

*so Shad’s going to help me replace my starter and I was thinking it’d be funny if he comes over and is like “are you all ready to replace it?” and I said “almost” and I go inside and then come out in grease monkey jumpsuit, grease smeared all over my face and a big old monkey wrench hanging off my belt. “Alright, now I’m ready.”

I said I’m give you some pocket reviews (so concise you can fit them in your pocket) for some of the CDs I am reviewing for kzsu. Well, here they are:

Adem Homesongs: a surprisingly good album of indie-folk. it’s probably most comparable to Devandra Banhart, but without the annoying. home recorded by Brit Adem (pronounced AH-dem) Illah, this uses normal sounds and sort of strange sounds together to make a nice blend of listenable but not always expected music.

the Mendoza Line Fortune: this sounds a lot like Wilco at times. At other times it sounds like country pop (aka mainstream country). By no means a bad album. This is listenable and there are even some pretty decent songs on it.

Jens Lekman When I Said I Wanted to be Your Dog: I was really surprised by this album as well and I’ve been liking it more since I turned in my review for KZSU. He’s a swedish crooner of sorts. He’s got some great instrumentation/ orchestration on this album, from piano-voice ballads to songs with clips of afro-latin bands or 70s theme music complete with crazy brass parts. It’s also got a miss of a track in “Do you remember the riots” which reminds me a lot of “How fucking romantic” from the Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs and is just as annoying. In the end, it’s probably most comparable to the Magnetic Fields or Belle and Sebastian.

American Music Club Love Songs for Patriots: Mark Eitzel’s band comes back after 10 years. Honestly it sounds pretty much like his solo stuff. It’s got a lot of varied types of songs on it and it’s pretty consistently pretty good. No great tracks from first listen.

Elizabeth Cotten Shake Sugaree: North Carolina African-American traditional/ folk guitar and banjo, some instrumental, some with vocals. Elizabeth Cotton is of a similar class to Leadbelly or Woody Guthrie—like them she started in the folk tradition but also wrote her own songs in that style; she also was �discovered� and did many concerts around the country during her lifetime. self-taught, she played right handed guitars (and banjos) lefty, just flipped around upside down so her thumb hit the high strings and her fingers plucked out the bass line. Thorough liner notes and the recording quality throughout is good. This is worth checking out if you like this sort of music.

Guided by Voices Half Smiles of the Decomposed: The one trillionth and last album by indie rock legends Guided by Voices. Robert Pollard has been quoted as saying �We are the kings of indie rock. When we quit, indie rock will die.� Might be a slight hyperbole. A listenable album, but not great. I’m not the biggest Guided by Voices fan. I always thought they were alright. If you are a big fan or used to be, this is probably worth checking out. They have been important, no doubt, in the last twenty years of indie rock; time will tell whether this album will be important as well.

So, in summary, I’d recommend checking out the Jens Lekman and Adem discs. The other discs are worth checking out if you’re into those bands or that sort of music.

I’ve been leafing through the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs list and I might post another time about how the list is dumb and how it could be better, what I’d put on it, etc, but it’s also got me listening to some songs I haven’t heard for a while.

Particularly some Sam Cooke stuff (”Dream Lover” and “Chain Gang” are just classic), Marvin Gaye (”Ain’t no Mountain High Enough” is a great song), Ronettes (”Be my Baby,” classic Phil Spector), Chuck Berry (”Maybellene,” the recording is crap and the verses are throwaway but the chorus makes it worth the listen), and Ray Charles (”What I’d Say,” I can’t get over the sounds from the keyboard and the band (and that crazy breakdown) in this recording).

But the most astounding track that I’m listening-to-again-for-the-first-time is “Tracks of my Tears” by Smokey Robinson. Dylan may have written world-changing protest songs and the Beatles sold a trillion records, including some that had meaningful songs, but I don’t think I’ve heard another song from that era with as much tortured-soul emotion in it. What gets me is that it’s more than just the song. Songs that really get me now (for example, “You will miss me when I burn” by Palace Brothers and “Sodom, South Georgia” by Iron & Wine) are delivered pretty flatly; the singer’s voice may crack or be whispered or whatever, but Smokey’s voice is a wail, a cry. Other people could sing this song but in part it’s his voice that makes this song great.

I saw Pedro the Lion with Half-Life Souvenir and Viva Voce last night at Slim’s. Chris Atwell went with me.

We got there during the last couple songs of Viva Voce. The first of which was a sort of Low-like steady-rhythm, slow-build song and the second of which was ‘Tonight you belong to me’ (which I know because Steve Martin plays it on ukulele in the beach scene of The Jerk (and Bernedette Peters’ character pulls out a trumpet out of no where and does the solo)). I ended up buying their album, Heat Can Melt Your Brain, which is odd and goes from one idea to another quickly, but is pretty good from first listen.

Half-life Souvenir is promising. Rosie Thomas (who’s recorded with Damien Jurado) sings in this. The guy and her sing an octave apart, which I’ve heard in other bands before but can’t think of specific examples. The drummer was solid; he ended up playing keyboards and aux percussion with Pedro. Anyway, they have some of Low slow-changing-chord stuff, some Album Leaf or Ms. John Soda electronic-indie stuff and some of their own sort of sound. It’s hard to describe, but I’ll be keeping an ear out for their future stuff.

Pedro was good. He had a four-piece: (Pedro is not a guy, but David Bazan, who is basically the band, is, so I refer to Pedro the Lion as he.) he and TW Walsh (drums), of course. A bass player that I recognized but don’t know the name of and a keyboard/ aux percussion guy named James. He played a lot of early stuff and a few songs each from Control and Achille’s Heel. He did solid versions of ‘Magazine’, ‘Indian Summer’ and ‘Criticism as Inspiration.’

They were out of my size of the Pedro Lion’s tail shirt, but I ended up getting a Pedro scarf, which is pretty rad and good conversation starter with the cute girl standing next to me.

I’m trying to figure out how many times I’ve seen Pedro, so here’s my list:

• February 14, 2001 w/ Low at Sommerville Theater
• September 16, 2001 w/ Seldom and TW Walsh at the Middle East Downstairs
• May 4, 2002 w/ Damien Jurado(?) at the Middle East Downstairs*
• November 3, 2002 w/ Seldom at the TT the Bear’s
• May 5, 2003 w/ Stratford 4, Alan Sparhawk (solo) and Ester Drang at the Middle East Downstairs**
• February 27, 2004 w/ John Vanderslice and the Advantage at Great American Music Hall
• June 2, 2004 w/ John Vanderslice at Bottom of the Hill
• December 7, 2004 w/ Half-Life Souvenir and Viva Voce at Slim’s

*one of my few two-show nights. I went to Belle and Sebastian at the Orpheum (early show) and then went across town for Pedro. I’m not convinced that Damien Jurado was at this date, or maybe I just missed him while I was at the other show.
**this show was probably the best, I think. He was working out some new songs so he did a chunk of great songs with the band and then the new ones solo acoustic, including the ‘Poison Makes’ and ‘Backwoods Nation’, which he’s basically refused to play live since.

So, I guess that’s eight. That has to be a record for bands that I’ve seen. I’ve seen a bunch of bands three or probably even four times. I think I counted six times for the Mates of State. Eight is just ridiculous. I started liking him early, he tours often and I just kept going to shows. I’m looking forward to the Low/ Pedro date at Great American in March. Should be good.

Oh, this is awesome, according to Pitchfork some indie rock bands have recorded a soundtrack for a zombie game that is completely covers of 50’s and earlier oldies tunes.

The tracklist:

01 Ben Kweller: “Lollipop”
02 The Raveonettes: “My Boyfriend’s Back”
03 Death Cab for Cutie: “Earth Angel”
04 Rogue Wave: “Every Day”
05 Cake: “Strangers in the Night”
06 The Walkmen: “There Goes My Baby”
07 Dandy Warhols: “All I Have to Do Is Dream”
08 Oranger: “Mr. Sandman”
09 The Flaming Lips: “If I Only Had a Brain”
10 Clem Snide: “Tears On My Pillow”
11 Rose Hill Drive: “Shakin’ All Over”
12 Milton Mapes: “Lonesome Town”
13 Phantom Planet: “The Living Dead” (non-cover, but zombie-themed song)

Sounds pretty good to me. It won’t come out until Summer 2005 though.

I’m currently doing my show this week. It’s album week on KZSU so I’m playing large parts of Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron & Wine, Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens and the Grey Album by Danger Mouse as they are some of the best/ most-significant albums of 2004. I’ll probably compile a best of 2004 show for the early morning of Dec. 31.

In other news, I’ve decided I like the Arcade Fire. A trillion other bands do the same thing and I don’t like them, but I like the Arcade Fire.

Holy crap. Forget KCRW’s Morning Becomes Electic on-air music archive (actually it’s definitely worth checking out if you haven’t) because I’ve found the KEXP Live Performance Archive. It has some sweet stuff. Two Sufjan performances. And how about this? A Ben Gibbard live perfomance where he does both “You remind me of home” and an acoustic cover version of “This is the Dream of Evan and Chan” (DNTL song with Gibbard–a line-up which later became the Postal Service).

I was recently finishing a mix CD for Lauren Owens to tide her over in her Peace Corps music vacuum. I had too much music for one CD and too little for two, so I quickly added some more for the second CD and sent it off. I’ve been listening to it the past few days and it is seriously good. It starts with some softer acoustic-like indie stuff, then transitions to indie rock, then to classic indie rock (mid-90s), then to indie pop, then to some (melodic) hip hop and finishing with an old-timey field recording.

Here’s the list:

1. Red House Painters “Michigan” from Old Ramon
2. Mark Kozelek “Metropol 47″ from Rock ‘N’ Roll Singer
3. Detachment Kit “Ricochet” from Of This Blood…
4. Modest Mouse “The World at Large” from Good News for …
5. Seam “Something’s Burning” from The Problem with Me
6. Sebadoh “Magnet’s Coil” from Bakesale
7. Superchunk “100,000 Fireflies” from Incidental Music 1991-1995
8. Belle and Sebastian “Expectations” from Tigermilk
9. Magnetic Fields “All My Little Words” from 69 Love Songs
10. Beulah “Emma Blowgun’s Last Stand” from When Your Heart Strings Break
11. Polyphonic Spree “One Man Show” from Together We’re Heavy
12. Outkast (Big Boi) “Unhappy” from Speakerboxxx
13. Flobots “Onomatopoeia” from Onomatopoeia
14. Flobots “The Last Straw, Pt. 2000″ from Onomatopoeia
15. The Alabama Sacred Harp Singers “Hallelujah/ Amazing Grace” from Southern Journey Vol. 10, And Glory Shone Around – More All Day Singing from the Sacred Harp

I also got 7 CDs from KZSU to review; the goal is to finish them by the end of the weekend. Some really good ones from first listen:

• Guided by Voices Half Smiles of the Decomposed [Matador]
• American Music Club Love Songs for Patriots [Merge]
• Jens Lekman When I Said I Wanted to be Your Dog [Secretly Canadian]
• Adem Homesongs [Domino]
• The Mendoza Line Fortune [Bar None]
• Elizabeth Cotten Shake Sugaree [Smithsonian Folkways]
• The Late BP Helium Amok [Orange Twin]

I’ll probably get small sample reviews of each up here when I finish them.

I did my show on Thursday. Here is the playlist. I started with some real indie rock, then went onto some softer stuff (indie pop, indie folk) and ended with a whole lot of old-timey music, mostly field recordings.

Last week I was making a mix CD last week for Christian Hiner, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer of Lauren Owens’ that I met while I was in Tanzania, of old-timey field recordings because he is interested in ethnomusicology and the process got all this music into my head. So I took it out on the radio public.