WHITE WHALE!!!

Writing anything about this album is hopelessly silly, as it came out six years ago. That's not long enough to be useful as a re-look review. Clearly, I'm just behind the times. But I think it's worthwhile here, because the target demographic, I suspect, probably missed this one just like I did. Because it's firey, bile-spewing, headbanger prog-metal. I know what you're thinking because I was thinking it myself when I first started hearing buzz about this album: metal is for lifting weights and when the Yankees are winning going into the ninth inning. Keep reading.

"Leviathan" by Mastodon is a concept album loosely based on Herman Melville's "Moby Dick."

Sure, not the most arcane literary reference, but if you require your thrasher metal to take the form of full-album-length tributes to classic works of fiction, you can't be choosy.

Taken with that grain of salt (along with the proviso that you understand that metal lyrics will sometimes be somewhat over-the-top), "Leviathan" is perfect. To convince you, I would like to suggest some visualization.

Close your eyes. Now picture yourself as a deck-hand on an early 19th Century whaling boat in the middle of a great storm. Now imagine the weathered captain. Bloodthirsty, obsessed beyond reason with revenge against a creature which is probably mentally incapable of such high-order thought processing. Now imagine the whale breaking the surface and charging the boat.

At this moment, could there be anything more perfect than the following lyrics (sung in a singular guttural roar) from "Blood and Thunder":

Split your lungs with blood and thunder
When you see the white whale
Break your backs and crack your oars men
If you wish to prevail.

From this point on, the album is a relentless tribute to the madness and obsession that drives Captain Ahab. Songs 1-3 are utterly perfect, and they are sequenced perfectly. Not until song six, "Megalodon," does the listener get even a moment of breathing room, and that for only a few seconds. By only by song 9, the sprawling 13-minute "Hearts Alive," does the album begin to wind down; it ends on the subdued "Joseph Merrick." But everything fits together as a singular experience that a properly executed concept album must produce in the listener.

Instrumentally, "Leviathan" is extremely lush and complex, somehow finding a way to blend the primal blood-'n-guts and guitar-shredding that you come to expect from metal with interesting and harmonious orchestration. Like those high points of Metallica's early material, you'll find yourself in the middle of a headbanging scream-fest when suddenly the band changes signatures and blasts forth with the kind of power chord melody that demands to be listened to again.

Really, I can't think of a more perfect metal album. At the very least, anyone who is harboring the preconceived notion that metal is all trash (which it mostly is) needs to hear this album.

Am I Behind The Times?

There's something about music that feels so incredibly current. If you're not on the ball, plugged in, or obsessively following the scene you'll miss it. I suppose you could describe all culture that way, but because I pay more attention to music than to visual art or fashion or film or theater I feel a greater responsibility to know what is now.

But why do I beat myself up, figuratively of course, about not discovering a particular band until well after their moment in the sun or 15 minutes of fame? Why does it matter when I find out about something I like? Do I feel like I missed out on a collective societal experience - a moment in time that will never be recreated? Well, yes.

One way this happens is, especially living in NYC, you don't find out about a band you like until they 'make it' and then it's impossible to get tickets to a show when they come to town (She & Him, Animal Collective, etc etc etc). Or you miss the tour supporting a particularly great album (Of Montreal- Hissing Fauna). Or you don't realize you like a band until they no longer exist (Uncle Tupelo). Or you feel silly suddenly liking a band because you heard them in a commercial and their 'real' fans think they've 'sold out' (this list could go on forever but Nick Drake comes to mind first even though he was dead well before someone put him in a Volkswagon ad).

This is perhaps not the best example but this week I started listening to a Manchester, England based band called Working For A Nuclear Free City, specifically their 2007 album Businessmen & Ghosts. They were on Pitchfork's radar way back in '06 but didn't make much of a splash in the US until '07.

I guess I should give myself a pass on this one - they've been playing in the background (literally) with some songs in everything from video games to movies. But when I heard them for the first time this week I was hooked - I hear an amazing distorted harmonica from time to time, Chemical Brothers-esque electronic loops, shoegaze-y guitars that burst into rock anthem-worthy solos, and some lyrics worth straining to hear. Each song, while contributing to the whole of this massive album, seems to have its own unique influences. (I also think Animal Collective must have been influenced by some of this when they made Merriweather.) Then all of a sudden out comes a poppy drum beat, like on England, and you're bopping your head and toe tapping before you really know what the song is. Love.

Needless to say, I'm now a fan. I discovered them for myself. Am I behind the times? That remains to be seen, but now I know about them and can happily anticipate their new album coming out later this year, Jo Jo Burger Tempest.

K'Naan - Troubador

In the rash of best-of lists at the end of each year, I always discover something that should have made my own best-of list. This is that album this year.

K'naan is a Somalian-Canadian who emigrated first to New York, then to Toronto when he was a teenager. He didn't speak english when he moved here, but he already had a great love for American hip hop. He raps about his life in Mogadishu, and about the difficulty of leaving a warzone with friends and family still in danger. His biography is very important to his image as a world-wise, self-aware rising star. This would be a fascinating story even if the music weren't so good.

Troubador is a kick in the pants - it's the first new hip hop album i've enjoyed since Tim Fite in 2007, and I've been playing it nonstop. It's ruining the monopoly that indie rock and alt-country have had on my ipod for a long time. The first song I heard was Wavin' Flag, and it's a fantastic song - uplifting and heartfelt like no other hip hop song i've ever heard - but it doesn't begin to showcase K'naan's rhymes. If I had to compare K'naan's style it would be somewhere between Kanye West and Eminem - he truly learned english by listening to hip hop, so he's assimilated perfectly the standard rap cadences, pronunciations, and interior rhymes of the most inventive American stars. The difference is, when he reps the hood he grew up in, it was Mogadishu. Not that suburban Chicago didn't have it's trials and tribulations.

Sometimes, K'naan gets caught up too much in comparing his relatively unassailable background to those of other rappers. He's obviously earned his swagger, and as with almost every hip hop album, it gets tiring to listen to him brag about gun crimes, and offer to take other rappers on a "field trip" to the streets where he was raised. But these moments are overshadowed by songs like Take a Minute where he credits his strength to his mother, to Africa, to the generosity of those who've taught him that if one truly knows anything, it's that he knows "not a damn, damn thing at all."

There are, of course, lighter moments as well, like 15 Minutes Away - where he raps about how much he loves getting money transfers from Western Union, Bang Bang - probably his best rhyme showcase, where he spins a dizzying tale about another dangerous experience in his life, trying a bed a woman who was just too beautiful, and If Rap Gets Jealous - featuring guitar work from Metallica's Kirk Hammet. These moments provide a welcome respite from the potentially depressing subject matter of some of the rest of the album, and the overall feeling is not only uplifiting, it's fun. K'naan grabbed my attention with his biography, but he's really backed it up with his music.

Where is our Abbey Road?

I thought this was an interesting article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-bradley/the-band-of-the-decade-th_b_409217.html

Feel free to skip the lower portion of the article, in which the author describes at length the process of his re-discovery of the Beatles. What I thought was most interesting was that the top-selling album of the "aughties" was from a band that broke up 40 years ago.

Well, it got me thinking. Because I have been spending the last month or so listening to new music and trying to come up with my top picks of 2009. Music I'd been told about and music I'd read about. And although I can come up with a few really good albums, I'm having trouble thinking of the last time I heard anything "classic." And when I say "classic," I don't mean something that I think is great, but rather something that I think will be listened to in 40 years and considered with the kind of reverence bestowed upon those classics that I just mentioned. By comparison, I think "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" was great, but R.E.M.'s "Automatic For the People" is classic.

Forty years from now, what will be our "Abbey Road" or "Dark Side of the Moon" or even "Velvet Underground and Nico"?

My preference would be to say "Kid A" or Brian Wilson's "Smile," but realistically, those are far too eccentric to have the mass appeal that a classic really needs.

Incidentally, Rolling Stone has put out their Top 100 Best Albums of the Decade:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/31248017/100_best_albums_of_the_decade/44

I'm sorry, but I just can't really put much stock in a list like this where the top 25 includes 3 raspy-voice Dylan albums; 2 each of past-his-prime Springsteen, U2, and Jay-Z; and one Coldplay. Call me biased (or maybe just hopeful), but wasn't there more interesting music in the last decade than these bands?

Ten Years

I've been thinking a lot lately about the last ten years. Not because today is the first day of the new decade (that happens next year), but because ten years ago last summer I graduated from high school. I think it's a truism that in our society the first years out of your parents care define who you become as a person. You fall in love, you embark on a career or course of study, you develop taste, in friends, in food, in pass-times, in art. Since this blog is focused on the latter, that's precisely what we'll do.
The last ten years have been very rich musically. This era, defined indefatigably by the disastrous Bush presidency, has produced some of the most important popular music since rock and roll muscled it's way out of the primordial soup of blues, folk and jazz that defined the middle twentieth century. If you're like me, the last decade's music will stick with you in a way unequaled since Elvis, The Beatles and Bob Dylan stole the Promethean fire from Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Ike Turner.
Certainly, part of this staying power is owed to the new methods of music distribution and portability that have been developed in the last ten years. Music has entered our lives in a way it never has before. This has led to a lessened appreciation for sustained works like albums at the same time that it has allowed music to easily and seamlessly define our experiences in ways never possible before. We now rely on blogs, intelligent streaming services like Pandora, and prime-time soap operas to influence our taste the way we used to rely on radio and recommendations from savvy friends. We listen to the music we want to listen to wherever we happen to be.
All this has had a democratizing effect on music snobbery. It is so easy to maintain a finger on the pulse of popular entertainment that the shelf-life of anything remotely popular has shrunk to almost infinitesimal. By the time you've had a chance to hear the new Vampire Weekend song, the backlash has begun and no matter how good it is, it's just not cool anymore.
But more than the technology, more than the speed and accesibility of music distribution, more than the proliferation of opinionated snobs, this era has been defined by the building blocks of great popular music: great songs and great albums. From the political ranting of Green Day's American Idiot to the heart-pounding brilliance of Girl Talk's Feed the Animals (just two of the perfect albums that didn't make the list...) music has pushed us to new appreciations of ourselves, our lives, our politics, our emotions.
This is my list of the best popular music recordings of the last ten years, the first ten years of my independent life. The years in which I met my wife, fell in love, lost my virginity, finished my formal education, embarked on a rewarding career, and established some semblance of self were constantly defined by what I was listening to. These songs and albums have followed me where I was going, but more importantly, they have showed me new ways to go. They will be with me for the rest of my life, and are, I think, some of the best and most important albums to have ever been released. If you haven't heard any one of these albums, please check them out:

1.Radiohead - Kid A(2001)/Amnesiac(2002)
2. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot(2001)
3. Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of the Bewilderbeast(2000)
4. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake It's Morning(2005)
5. The Arcade Fire - Funeral(2004)
6. The White Stripes - Elephant(2003)
7. Radiohead - In Rainbows(2007)
8. Beck - Sea Change(2002)
9. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago(2008)
10. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah(2006)
11. The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots(2002)
12. Elliot Smith - Figure 8(2000)
13. Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker(2000)
14. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?(2007)
15. My Morning Jacket - Z(2005)

honorable mentions (this could go on forever...)
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood(2006)
Animal Collective - Meriweather Post Pavillion(2009)
Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther(2006)
YeahYeahYeah's - Fever to Tell(2003)
Soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou?(2000)

My 09 List

In no particular order. Not everything came out this year, but we 'acquired' everything this year in one way or another. I chose to do a list of what I think I listened to the most this year in lieu of what I think the best music of this year was - mostly because I got burned out on music from being at Anthology for awhile and didn't keep up with what was being released. But here's my list!


Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - 1901




Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career - French Navy




Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion - My Girls




The Avett Brothers - I and Love and You - I and Love and You




Blitzen Trapper - Furr - Furr




(I'm going to regret doing this, but...)
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band - Outer South - Air Mattress




M. Ward - Hold Time - Never Had Nobody Like You
(volume on this is really low for some reason)




Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer -
(I get to count this because we got the LP this year and realized that we never had all the songs from the album until then)




Rodriguez - Cold Fact - Sugar Man




Titua Andronicus - The Airing of Grievance - Upon Viewing Bruegel's "Landscape With the Fall of Icarus"




Wilco - Wilco (The Album) - Wilco (The Song)
We are *almost* in this video, actually. Front and center. Great show!

2009

So I asked iTunes to make me a smart playlist containing everything that I've added in 2009, and the result is 679 tracks (to a library of 11815 items). Sorting by play count, it generated this list to summarize 2009:

Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young-Fire Inc.-Streets Of Fire.
The most frequently played song added in 2009? Crazy. A popular hit off my "Jim Fucking Steinman" playlist.

We Are Golden-Mika-The Boy Who Knew Too Much (Deluxe Version)
New album from the high-fructose-Lebanese-Brit-boy-pop master Mika. He jumps around in his underwear a lot, if you like that sort of thing.

Under Pressure-Queen-The Platinum Collection: Greatest Hits
Harkening back to another sweet time, Freddie Mercury. The actual musical skill that Queen fields makes acts like Mika and our entire decade look sort of sad.

Story of a Heart-Helen Sjöholm-Kristina från Duvemåla
Just what we always need, a new Abba song. Written by Benny and Bjorn for the English release of their 20-years too late epic musical, Kristina från Duvemåla, it certainly featured in this year's rotation.

So Hard-Pet Shop Boys-Discography: The Complete Singles Collection
I was really surprised to see this come up in the list. I've spent 40 minutes and 40 seconds this year listening to this? Well, you can't exactly go wrong with Pet Shop Boys...

The Freshmen-Jay Brannan-The Freshmen (Single)
a pre-release single from his album, the masterful young, (hot) Jay Brannan does his take on this classic.

Zombie-Jay Brannan-In Living Cover
Another from Brannan

Mothertongue Pt. 4: Monster-Nico Muhly-Mothertongue
Some people say Nico Muhly is incredibly talented. Sometimes he's also writing an Opera for performance at The Met. Others aren't that impressed.

Useless Useful Phrases-Original London Cast-Sail Away
Elaine Stritch. What can a person say. Maybe too many hours doing Rosetta Stone this year has made this song resonate far more than it should. Music and Lyrics by Noël Coward.

Totale Finsternis-Original German Cast-Tanz Der Vampire
The finale from the Roman Polanski directed mega hit. You'll know the song (start at about 1:07). Vampires returned to Vienna this year, as if it they had ever really gone away. Polanski had a less good year.

2009 was a good one, we'll see what happens in 2010.

my 2009 best-of list

This is my list, in no order whatsoever, of what I've listened to and loved this year. I think this was a really good year for music. I hope you'll agree.

Wilco - Wilco (the album)
Animal Collective - Meriweather Post Pavillion
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band - Outer South
Brian Eno and David Byrne - Everything That Will Happen Will Happen Today
Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
M. Ward - Hold Time
Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk
Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
The Swell Season - Strict Joy

ok, there happen to be ten albums here, but i promise that wasn't on purpose.

M. Ward started this great year of music off in February with Hold Time. No one will ever accuse M. Ward of being ground-breaking, but if you couldn't get behind this blast of folkie warmth in the depths of winter, you didn't have a seasonal-depressive bone in your body.
Next, I heard Animal Collective's new record, which is probably the freak-folk movement's Kid A, an absolute masterpiece of electronic manipulation, weird instrumentation, alienated, layered harmony vocals, and worldbeat madness.
In March, Neko Case released Middle Cyclone, which ends with a patience-testing 30-minute long field recording of crickets. But with the amazing pop gems like "People Got a Lotta Nerve" and the haunting vocals of "Prison Girls" that came first, who cares?
Conor Oberst's Outer South felt like a truly collaborative record, he even shared songwriting credit and let some of the other guys in the band sing their own songs. The standout song is actually not even one of Conor's - "Air Mattress" is an unbelievably dance-y 80's synth-pop send up.
Wilco's self-titled new album felt like the start of summer for me: the pick-me-up pop of "Wilco (the song)" was just too irresistible. "Are you feeling Depressed? Wilco will love you baby!"
There were two albums not released in 2009 that made my list this year since I discovered them this year:
David Byrne lives up to his weirdo reputation on songs like "I Feel My Stuff" and "Strange Overtones," while Brian Eno's absolutely addictive arrangements and instrumentation make these bizarre melodies and lyrics seem like just the most natural thing in the world. It takes a while to get it, but boy, is it worth it.
Frightened Rabbit is a real find - a heart-on-sleeve Scottish take on folk-pop. I was singing along with "Old Old Fashioned" the first time I heard it. Can it be possible that my whisky intake increased after buying this record?
For thoughts on Monsters of Folk and The Swell Season, see my previous posts... The find of the year was the French band Phoenix, whose record, released in February, I didn't hear about until the fall. I don't know how they sing with such perfect American accents. I don't know how it's possible to write an amazing song about Franz Liszt. I don't know how these songs haven't always existed.

honorable mentions (for recording a song that held my attention, but not fleshing it out for a full album)
Grizzly Bear "Two Weeks"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Zero"
Heartless Bastards "The Mountain"
Steve Earle "Pancho and Lefty"

dishonorable mention
Bob Dylan Christmas in the Heart - I sincerely hope some day I'm able to appreciate some kind of irony in this album. For now though, it just sounds like drunk uncle Bob trying to ruin Christmas for everyone.

Monsters of Folk

Supergroups always sound better on paper than they do on records. Does anyone think either of the Travelling Wilbury's records are better than any George Harrison or Bob Dylan or Tom Petty record? Probably, but their opinion is incorrect.

That said, I love the new record by Monsters of Folk. That's probably obvious, given how often i talk about, listen to, and sing songs by the constituent bands populated by Conor Oberst, Jim James, Mike Mogis and M. Ward. But I tried to not like this album - I even told myself I hated the first four songs that I heard when they posted them on their Myspace page. Each one just sounded like a song that was written by whoever was singing (often the problem with side projects), and I wasn't hearing anything remarkable in their collaboration.

Months later, I saw them play a show at the United Palace Theatre in Washington Heights. It was a very cool evening - the upper level of the balcony was almost deserted, and no one seemed to know what to expect. They played for almost 3 hours, covering every song on their album, trading vocals and instruments, and also taking turns playing music from each of their primary groups albums.

I don't think you need to see them live to appreciate them, in fact, I think this album would be a great primer for people who don't particularly like Bright Eyes or My Morning Jacket or She and Him (or M. Ward's solo albums, or Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, or Yim Yames' solo tribute to George Harrison). These guys are prolific songwriters, constantly honing their craft, and paying homage to their forebears. So what if each of them has such a recognizable style that you can tell, even without listening to the singing, which of the songs on the record they wrote? Have you ever heard a Bob Dylan song you didn't know was Dylan immediately?

Just listen to Ahead of the Curve (an Oberst song). Yes, that's M. Ward on the bass; yes, that's a Jim James signature ringing guitar line, yes that's Mike Mogis making you cry with the lap steel. Still, it's Conor's song, and he's still travelling, looking for a place to call his home, a life he can be comfortable with. Maybe it's about being from a (relatively) small mid-western town and making the best of what you have wherever life leads you. Can anyone think of why I might identify with a song like that?

Or try the M. Ward song Whole lotta losin'. Its a 3 min burst of rockabilly bliss (Ward's specialty), a romantic vision of a young man's life, down on his luck, trying to pick up the pieces, realizing how much of life has passed by already. The vocal harmonies suggest that they've all lived this life, but the guitar licks tell another story: they've moved on, found another path. They're not letting their friends and heroes pack up and move away anymore - they're playing in a band with them.

Its one of the many moments on the album when you realize how much these guys mean to each other. They've grown up playing music together, trying to make it on their own. While each of their primary groups will probably continue to and rightfully should occupy the bulk of their time and their songs, let's hope that the Monster's of Folk reconvene every now and then to re-inject their fans with some much-needed warmth and affection.

let's make that official

not that i'm ready with mine yet, but i second the motion for an installation of end-of-year best-of lists. let's make this a challenge - if you still read this blog (i know you've needed patience), write down the great things you've heard this year. they don't have to be in any order, you don't need any certain number, just let us know what's been spinning on your record player, hard drive, cd player, tape deck. if you need an invite to contribute let me know. in the meantime, read this next post:

It's that time of year again (when we make lists)

Usually, around this time of year, I look around and realize that although I've discovered a number of interesting new recordings that were new-to-me, I'm actually not that up to date on music that is actually new to the world. I therefore enlist the services of the all-powerful Google to find me the "Top Albums of 2009." Conveniently for me (as it saves me the time of slogging through countless fan-boys' Amazon.com "Top Albums of 2009" lists, which invariably have drivel like Echo & the Bunnymen's new album or whatever) Metacritic offers a page of the top rated albums by year.

Browsing this list and downloading randomly from it leads to interesting results. While it did find interesting music like this:


and this:



It also found me this:



So, in other words, I'd say it's a mixed bag (although, truth be told, after a couple of listens, the "drone metal" is growing on me in a hark-back-to-my-high-school-days-when-I-first-heard-Rammstein kind of way).

For that reason, I'd be down for some "Best of 2009" listage here, if anybody has anything to contribute.

The Swell Season - Strict Joy

After a long break from writing, I've been inspired to come back by lots of great new music this fall. Partially, this is due to my rediscovery of the revamped music website Lala.com. They have a great new program for discovering and legitimately purchasing new music. You'll see links to various songs now in the blog - you can go to lala and stream the songs one time for free. hope you enjoy!

There are certain albums that - when i turn them on for the subway trip to work in the morning - allow me to make a lot of progress on whatever book or magazine I'm reading that day. The new album Strict Joy by The Swell Season is not one of those albums.

I have loved this duo's (Irish Singer Glenn Hansard, and Czech Pianist Marketa Irglova) music since seeing them in the indepdendant film Once, music they wrote about falling in love while making the movie (which is about two musician's falling in love and making music together). It was a real thrill to watch them reach critical and commercial success (eventually winning the 2008 Oscar for best song with "Falling Slowly") since I wrote about watching the movie way back in December 2007. It is a very touching story, and their music, peopled by heart-on-sleeve lyrics and soaring arrangements punctuated by alternately jarring and lulling acoustic guitar can seem overblown at times, but is always affecting.


listen to the album here:


It came as a surprise then, to hear first, that the couple had broken up, and second, that they had decided to continue on as a musical collaboration. If the soundtrack to Once is about their journey of falling in love, Strict Joy is about falling out of it. This is not a breakup album on the order of Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, a one-sided, sometimes-snarling, sometimes-regretful postmortem on a relationship probably doomed from the beginning. This is a balanced view from the inside of a couple that obviously cared deeply for each other and tried desperately to make it work. Even the moments where accusations are made come off with an uncanny tenderness, possibly because the accusee is harmonizing so beautifully even as the accusation is being leveled. There is still love here, even if it only lives on in the music.

Sandy Bull

I've been exposed to a lot more experimental psychedelic music recently, again through Anthology. Today I had to compile release notes for Sandy Bull's Still Valentines Day, 1969, Live at The Matrix, San Francisco and after hearing the album in full and really enjoying it, I thought I'd share here. Honestly Bull sounds drugged out and distant when speaking, but the music is wonderfully blues/Middle Eastern/experimental sounding.

Here's my writeup:
Still Valentines Day, 1969, Live At The Matrix, San Francisco is a compilation of live tracks from Sandy Bull’s two live performances at The Matrix in San Francisco on February 14th and April 5th, 1969.

Expertly performing on borrowed equipment, Bull, in his finger-picking style, plays both the oud and guitar on this album, accompanying himself with tape loops. “Electric Blend 1” and “Electric Blend 2” with their tape reverberations are tracks you can only imagine experiencing live – this album being the next best thing. While he claims to only have recently picked up the oud, his two “Improvisations For Oud” suggest anything but. The melodies heard there have a distinctively Middle Eastern sound, in sharp contrast to “Memphis, TN” where he plays electric guitar alongside a fuzzy Chuck Berry tape.

Turn up the volume for Bull’s quiet introduction of several tracks, which give a unique glimpse at his experimental performance style and descriptions of his techniques. Listen closely and in the introduction of track 4, “Manha De Carnival” you will hear the inspiration for the album’s title: lost in the performance and technical difficulties and likely some mind altering chemicals he states “it’s Valentines Day… I don’t know if it still is… might be past midnight.”


You can listen to samples and buy the album, if you so choose, at Anthology Recordings

Department Of Eagles - No One Does It Like You

I've been hearing this Department of Eagles song in various places, and today saw the video which apparently premiered at MoMA last night - I love the red hooded soldiers' ballet moves.

March Music

Saw Asobi Seksu on Saturday in D.C. and, while I wasn't amazed by any of the recordings I listened to pre-show, they put on a good concert and would recommend seeing them live (despite some singer crankiness about sound issues that weren't affecting anyone but her). The openers, Tyvek, were also pretty good angsty punk rock - the best part about them was their drummer, in my opinion.

This internship I'm doing for Anthology Recordings is exposing me to a lot of music I probably wouldn't seek out otherwise, which is what made me write this quick post. On the bus ride back from D.C. yesterday I enjoyed listening to The Best of the Old School, a compilation of early rap put out by Enjoy Records between 1979 and 1981. I was tasked with prepping this album for the site and got to do a bit of poking into the history of the album, which you'll find summarized in a brief writeup there. Listening really makes me wish I'd known about Bobby Robinson before this so I could have visited his shop on 125th St before it closed last year. He was thought to be the first African American business owner on 125th when he opened his shop in 1949 but was priced out of his space in 2008.

Stereogum.com's MySplice III

Hi folks - Happy Holidays!
For the 3rd year in a row, Stereogum.com has posted their MySplice III where they have a DJ remix 10 songs of that year. I think previous years' mashups were better but this is a pretty nice, free thing to be able to listen to today. You can also download the album as a zip file but I think that would only be worth it for a few tracks like Debbie Does Montreal which is Blondie vs. Of Montreal.

Also, the RIAA is dropping their filesharing lawsuits!

Great Lake Swimmers

This isn't a new CD, and I may be the last person on the planet to discover this band, but I just accidentally discovered two CDs by the Great Lake Swimmers on my work computer (probably poached from a co-worker's iPod). What a happy accident that was!





The GLSs are just another of your run-of-the-mill lo-fi, singer-songwriter, twee, indie rock, folk, or whatever you call them. Really nice sound though, great vocals, very nice instrumentation. Check it out!

http://www.amazon.com/Ongiara-Great-Lake-Swimmers/dp/B000OHZKB8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1223062654&sr=1-1

New York, I Love You

I was feeling a bit like James Murphy until a few weeks ago, singing "New York, I Love You, but you're bringing me down... New York, I Love You, but you're freaking me out... "

And then I went on vacation. With a great friend to a beautiful but dusty and poor Latin American country where the word of the day was always DAMP. I had a great time. I came home sunburned, bug bitten, and bruised, but I hadn't had that much fun in a long while.

There is something about travel that uncovers thoughts in your head that you didn't know were there. Maybe it's the long hours on buses and in airports, or maybe it was just me - trying to avoid chloroquine induced crazy dreams and thoughts of my stolen camera. But in the middle of the sticky nights I found myself reaching for my iPod, listening to podcasts, watching movies, and looking for comfortable music.

I have been a fan of the Sam Roberts Band, a group of cute Montreal rockers, for about 5 years now and they fit the description of 'comfortable.' I know their songs, catchy & simple with the occasional surprise twist - a falsetto, quick piano entry, or maybe just a smart quip of a lyric that sticks with you.

Listening to their 2006 album, Chemical City, in the dark, I fondly remembered seeing them in a city park last summer, alone in a sea of Brooklynites enjoying great music. In a Latin American country, listening to a Canadian band, a Midwesterner fully realized that New York has become home, and missed it. Home is a weird word - I've lived plenty of places that never earned that status. And despite the New York that brings me down and freaks me out, New York I Love You. Thanks, Sam Roberts, for reminding me of that.

New York, you're the one pool where I'd happily drown.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JkBiP7rPt0

The Sam Roberts Band has a new album, Love at the End of the World, which sounds promising from the tracks on their myspace page but doesn't come out in the US until February '09. Please check them out!

Hibernation

This blog has lain dormant for too long. With summer in full swing I feel that I have emerged from some sickly hibernation and am just now starting to awaken to the sounds of music that reverberates in my headphones, out on the streets, and at the many concerts that I plan on attending in these warm weeks.

I use SonicLiving to track what shows I plan on attending, and looking through my 'wishlist' I see too much, and I like what I see.

But I digress from the point of what spurred me to write this evening. Lately I've been finding remarkable songs that impress me via headphone listening, and I'd like to share.

Foals: Baloons
I've really been digging the Foals album Antidotes recently, but this song always sticks out. Maybe because it's the first song by them that I'd ever heard. But I think it sticks out because of what a great headphones song it is.

Atlas Sound: Ready, Set, Glow
I just listened to this song for the first time NOT on headphones and it still blows my mind. Bradford Cox from Deerhunter is a phenomenon. I don't like everything he does, but when he does it well... well, it's awesome. Just try listening to this song on headphones and not space out to it.

Ting Tings: Great DJ
You've heard the Ting Tings, probably without noticing. The "That's Not My Name" song? That's them. Initially I wrote them off as a one-hit-wonder-slash-LilyAllenesque UK band but this song (track 1) draws me in. Plus the repetitive guitar riff sounds great all the way through. The rest of the album deserves a listen too - it's summer fun. Fruit machine? What the hell is that? Better question: Who cares?

And, just for effect,

Girl Talk: Like This
Gregg Gillis specializes in sampling/mashups. Download his most recent album (pay what you wish) before he gets sued and can't distribute it anymore. This song has more samples than I've ever heard in one track and even if it's not Gillis' best work, it's worth listening to see how many samples you recognize.

Some warmth for a cold morning

Gotham is cold and windy today, and with a day of grunt work ahead I have three sources of salvation for my bored brain:

Brownbird Rudy Relic www.myspace.com/brownbirdrudyrelic I had the pleasure of seeing Brownbird for the first time last night and was not disappointed. He's a one man hollerin' blues performance piece, playing archtop guitar and kazoo while acting as his own percussionist with taps on the bottoms of his dayglo green shoes. Upon first sight he is a compact person with slick hair but the stage transforms him into a raucous presence with a giant mouth. I don't think his music has the same impact in the crude recordings posted on his myspace page, but if you get the opportunity to see him in person, it's worth the trip.

Mark Ronson, Version www.myspace.com/markronson I missed the boat on Version when it came out, but I really enjoy this album of covers from the UK producer probably best known for his work with Amy Winehouse on Black on Black. Perhaps my favorite track is the version of Radiohead's "Just" but I'm still working my way through the album. It deserves a listen!

Yeasayer www.myspace.com/yeasayer I have a hard time describing this Brooklyn based band, but I got their album a few weeks ago and have listened to it a lot since then, somewhat unconsciously. Sometimes when I get new music I force myself to listen to it over and over again right away but with All Hour Cymbals I've been drawn to put it on without thinking. I believe they describe themselves as "Middle Eastern-psych-snap-gospel," but I have no idea what that means; what I hear is a lot of layering of vocal harmonies and unexpected sounds (phones ringing, kids yelling, etc) and I like it.