April 30, 2008
I am so behind that I’m skipping notes for a bit. Starting this month, I’m going to try and keep a streaming version of the current mix on http://hqd.muxtape.com
1) The Dugout - Ladyhawk - Ladyhawk
2) The Bell - This Gift - Sons and Daughters
3) The Cheapest Key - Asking For Flowers - Kathleen Edwards
4) Fried Out - In A Cave - Elf Power
5) Language City - Kissing The Beehive - Wolf Parade
6) George Michael - Walk It Off - Tapes ‘n Tapes
7) Strange Currencies - Monster - R.E.M.
8) Librarian - Evil Urges - My Morning Jacket
9) Big Kid Table - We Brave Bee Stings And All - Thao Nguyen
10) Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? - Volume One - She & Him
11) Marduk T-Shirt Men’s Room Incident - Heretic Pride - Mountain Goats
12) Bring it On Home to Me - Colin Meloy Sings Sam Cooke - Colin Meloy
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March 30, 2008
1) In A Coma - Moon Rock - Paul Steel
2) Spiral Stairs - In A Cave - Elf Power
3) Hang Them All - Walk It Off - Tapes ‘n Tapes
4) S.T.H.D. - Shots - Ladyhawk
5) Remember When (Side B) - Attack & Release - Black Keys
6) Becky - Get Awkward - Be Your Own Pet
7) The Nest - This Gift - Sons and Daughters
8) Oh Shenila - Introducing - Cadallaca
9) Bag of Hammers - We Brave Bee Stings And All - Thao Nguyen
10) Cold Son - Real Emotional Trash - Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks
11) Michael Myers Resplendent - Heretic Pride - Mountain Goats
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February 28, 2008
1) Supernatural Superserious - Accelerate - R.E.M.
2) Gilt Complex - This Gift - Sons and Daughters
3) Bitches Leave - Get Awkward - Be Your Own Pet
4) I Got Mine - Attack & Release - Black Keys
5) Fear - Shots - Ladyhawk
6) We Can’t Help You - Real Emotional Trash - Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks
7) Metal Heart - Jukebox - Cat Power
8) San Bernadino - Heretic Pride - Mountain Goats
9) Travel - We Brave Bee Stings And All - Thao Nguyen
10) Tonight You Belong To Me - One Too Many Hearts - The Bird And The Bee
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January 26, 2008
1) Flags - This Gift - Sons and Daughters
“Flags” is one of the more muscular numbers off This Gift, which is generally how I like this band. My favorite songs of theirs always have that deep, growling bass line. This track also a howling guitar solo too, which is a real bonus.
2) Docudrama - Sweet Revenge - Bangs
Guitars with slight AC/DC and Sabbath tinges, girly call and response vocals and lots and lots of handclaps. What’s not to love?
3) (I’m A) Donkey For Your Love - Let’s Drag Our Feet! - BOAT
Falsettos are funny. Animal imagery, mixtapes growing on trees, unabashed romanticism fuel this great, great pop number. Yes, the chorus really does say “I’m A Donkey For Your Love!” No false advertisement here!
4) Swimming Pools - We Brave Bee Stings And All - Thao Nguyen
Nguyen’s album isn’t particularly political, but “Swimming Pools” plays with the idea of making the world a better place for the kids that come after her: “We brave, beestings and all / we don’t dive we CANNONBALL / we splash our eyes full of chemicals / just so there’s none left for little girls” This song also a nifty banjo track.
5) “Burn, Don’t Freeze!” - The Hot Rock - Sleater-Kinney
This has always been one of my favorite, underrated S-K tracks. It’s a little puzzlebox of a song, with Corin and Carrie actually singing two completely different songs that bounce in and out of each other, complementing and counterpunching each other along the way. Extending their guitar interplay to the vocal melodies and lyrics, it’s a logical extreme that remains emotionally satisfying while being insanely complex.
6) The Same Fire - June - Bishop Allen
Bishop Allen actually cranked out an EP a month for a whole year in 2006, most of which ended up on their full length. This is one of the tracks that didn’t make it onto the album, despite it being a mainstay of their setlists. The throwaway reading of “goddamn… you were beautiful” gets me every time.
7) Autoclave - Heretic Pride - Mountain Goats
Heretic Pride is the early front-runner for my 2008 album of the year. To quote John Darnielle himself, this song is about “people whose hearts involuntary pulverize any good feelings that come within a city block of them.” It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it too… awkwardly.
8) Gardenia - Real Emotional Trash - Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks
“I kinda like the way you dot your J’s … with giant circles of naivety!” is the kind of wry, whimsical lyrical turn that Malkmus pulls off every now and then that just flips my shit. In an album full of jammy goodness, “Gardenia” is condensed hooky perfection.
9) Naked If I Want To - Jukebox - Cat Power
Stuffed onto the bonus disc of Jukebox, this is Chan Marshall’s second pass at the Moby Grape song. The sparseness of the first cover was fantastic, but I think there’s something to be said for this soulful New Chan style.
10) Bryn - Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend’s album is a bit too “college kids do world music” for me, but the trippy little guitar lick carries “Bryn” quite a ways for me, even past the singer’s goofy calypso accent.
11) Wild Mountain Nation - Wild Mountain Nation - Blitzen Trapper
The first few notes make me think I’m listing to “Signs” by The Five Man Electrical Band. I liked this Malkmus bit about Blitzen Trapper opening for them and this song in particular: “I was blown away by that (song). But then Janet’s like, ‘That song is absolutely amazing, but don’t worry, not every song on the album is that good. They’re not going to completely shred us.’ “
12) Night You’re Beautiful - Shots - Ladyhawk
Ladyhawk’s kind of the band for people that like The National and Band of Horses but think they should hunker down and just rock some ass. Great song, great album, great band. Horrible band name (and I like that movie).
13) “Aly, Walk With Me” - Lust Lust Lust - Raveonettes
The Raveonettes throw together a sexy, slightly trip-hop beat with Morricone guitar lines and a few guitar washes and make a walk through Portland sound like a 60’s spy movie.
14) Shake A Fist - Made In the Dark - Hot Chip
Who puts a 5 minute dance track at the end of mix? I do, cuz that kinda shit just wears me out and makes me tired.
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January 17, 2008
The LA Weekly has a little interview with Paul Thomas Anderson as he ruminates on the Valley, baseball and There Will Be Blood, arguably his best film to date. The most important bit though, is the secret origin of Daniel Plainview’s “I Drink Your Milkshake” monologue:
“I must admit to you where that came from,” Anderson says giddily, noting that the eccentric metaphor comes straight from the congressional transcripts of the 1920s “Teapot Dome” scandal, in which New Mexico Republican Senator Albert Fall was convicted of accepting bribes for the oil-drilling rights to public lands in California and Wyoming from several oil-industry fat cats (including Edward Doheny).
“I think it was Albert Fall, who was asked to describe drainage before Congress,” Anderson continues. “And his way of describing it was, ‘If you have a milk shake and I have a milk shake, and my straw reaches across the room…’ I’m sure I embellished it and changed it around and made it more Plainview. But Fall used the word ‘milk shake,’ and I thought it was so great. It was mad to see that word among all this official testimony and terminology — a fucking milk shake. I get so happy every time I hear that word.”
If he gets happy at just a mention of the word, he should hear my impersonation of Daniel Plainview singing Kelis’s “Milkshake.”
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December 30, 2007
1) A Trip Out - Do You Like Rock Music? - British Sea Power
British Sea Power must be fairly confident to title their album Do You Like Rock Music? but this track, at the very least, does rock a little.
2) Stormy High - In The Future - Black Mountain
Like a Canadian Wolfmother, Black Mountain is blatantly Sabbathy. Like Wolfmother, they’re pretty good at it.
3) Wrigley Scott - Curses - Future Of The Left
Sadly, this song has little to do with the Cubs or Blade Runner, but it does have a lot of lines about eating sausage on a stick. THAT MAY BE AN UNSUBTLE EUPHEMISM.
4) Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? - Of Montreal
MAJOR props for combining Norse and Greek mythology in the title and not having it sound like Ragnarok in Zeus’s Beard. This bipolar tune (as far as I can tell, actually about manic-depression), works best in the sections about chemical euphoria.
5) “Beat (Health, Life, and Fire)” - We Brave Bee Stings And All - Thao Nguyen
After hearing this track, I’m really looking forward to the Thao Nguyen album due next month. She has a warble like Chan Marshall but she brings it with a confidence and assurance that Marshall only recently found.
6) Anyone Else But You - Moldy Peaches - Moldy Peaches
I adored Juno, but I found a lot of the musical references kind of shaky. Choosing the Moldy Peaches as the closer was dead-on though.
7) Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again - I’m Not There - Cat Power
Chan Marshall seems a little trapped in Bob Dylan’s phrasing, elongating her syllables to match but she sounds great anyway. Her band is working triple-overtime too, especially the horn section which is so happy and fun that it makes the seven minute number just fly by.
8) Country Caravan - Wild Mountain Nation - Blitzen Trapper
This is a great road song, reeking of Americana like a lost track from The Band.
9) Do What You Gotta Do - Golden Opportunities - Okkervil River
I’m always a sucker for a good Jimmy Webb cover, and this is a good one. Will Sheff can sing the shit out of sadness and sacrifice so this was a perfect fit.
10) You And Your Crystal Meth - Brighter Than Creation’s Dark - Drive-By Truckers
I don’t think this song is supposed to be funny, but I find crystal meth fucking hilarious.
11) Chains - This Gift - Sons and Daughters
Sons and Daughters seems to be polishing down their ragged edge for a more danceable, easy going appeal. This track is like their shot at a sock-hop jam.
12) Lover In The Snow - The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo - Rivers Cuomo
Even in his b-sides, Rivers Cuomo is rejected by girls and obsesses over them. While it’s not quite a Weezer classic, it is suitably creepy.
13) (My Head) - Rip It Off - Times New Viking
Times New Viking is the lowest-fi record I’ve heard in a while, and downright difficult to listen to. Underneath the breaking up of the speakers, there is a great exuberance trying to fight its way through.
14) Baltimore - Real Emotional Trash - Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks
Modern Malkmus can be a bit of an acquired taste, and the first couple of minutes of this number is decent but pedestrian psychedelia. Somewhere after the guitar and keyboard call and response section though, this song just starts kicking ass all over the place. It’s heavy, heady, trippy and highlighted by Malkmus’s hilarious reading of “Baltimore, Baltimo-oh-oh-whoa-whoa-whoa.” I’m not sure if I can refer to it as Bodymore, Murderland if I can get away with just sing Baltimo-oh-oh-whoa-whoa-whoa.
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