It’s Growing

February 4, 2008

I can have quite a few chat windows open now.

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Too Much Desktop

February 1, 2008

Finally rigged up my extra monitor at work.

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January ‘08 Mix

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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How I Was Convinced to See RAMBO.

January 25, 2008

The numbers are persuasive.

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On Milkshakes

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 ‘07 Mix

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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November ‘07 Mix

November 29, 2007

1) Cool - Gyrate Plus - Pylon

Delving into old bands can be a dangerous proposition, but getting to rediscover something like Pylon is what it’s all about. Simultaneously caustic and captivating, Pylon still has a jarring freshness to modern ears.

2) The Wicked Messenger - I’m Not There - The Black Keys

There’s a ton of great material on the I’m Not There soundtrack, but I love the Keys because they make their cover completely unDylanesque (hello, completely made-up word). While everyone is coming an inch short of doing actual Dylan impersonations, Auerbach and Carney are grinding out bog heavy blues as they are wont to do.

3) This Time Tomorrow - The Darjeeling Limited - The Kinks

This was already a classic track, but whenever Wes Anderson really nails a song placement he claims a little piece of it. Just hearing it makes me visualize everyone running in slow motion… is that just me?

4) Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe - The Stage Names - Okkervil River

I’m a big fan of someone trying to do an extended metaphor in their song lyrics, but film references is dicey. It’s just too easy to sound like video store clerk poetry. Despite shoehorning the word IMAX into the song, Will Sheff does admirably. I’m pretty close to calling Stage Names my favorite record of the year.

5) Sci-Fi Kid - Wild Mountain Nation - Blitzen Trapper

Most of Wild Mountain Nation has a folksy throwback country sound to it, but this song merges humble roots music with spacey keyboards and random digital samples to create their own space oddity.

6) Man - Please Clap Your Hands - The Bird And The Bee

The Bird and The Bee is a little bit trip hop and a little bossa nova. Their dreamy lounge music spikes with danceable beats and sharp melodies but is just slightly more interesting than your standard cutesy electronica.

7) Butterfly Nets - The Broken String - Bishop Allen

This is one of the few Bishop Allen tracks with Darbie Nowotka on lead vocal, and one of their most beautiful and fragile numbers. Even the trombone solo has a trembling frailty, which is stunning in its subtlety.

8) White Wedding (Billy Idol Cover) - Bridging The Distance - Whip

Buried in the middle of the Portland covers compilation, The Whip makes Billy Idol’s hit into a darkly beautiful murder ballad.

9) The Bleeding Heart Show - Twin Cinema - New Pornographers

I was revisiting Twin Cinema, and I was shocked to find that this didn’t sneak onto any my monthly mixes the year it came out. Despite being attached to a horrible Phoenix University commercial, it’s still one of the best New Porn tracks. The build and layering are tremendous, with the band going into Polyphonic Spree territory only to have Neko Case blast through the mix.

10) I Give Up - Live Shit - Quasi

The actual proper “song” is only the last half of the track, with a 90 second instrumental intro featuring the wacky drum stylings of Janet Weiss. Great intro, great song. It also captures the weakest audience reaction on a live album I’ve ever heard. To be fair, this was live IN STUDIO and not in a club, so the clapping is probably just three guys in a booth at Jackpot Records.

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ROCK FLAG EAGLE

November 16, 2007

For anyone that didn’t know, I finally got naturalized as an American citizen a few weeks ago. It’s a pretty short ceremony, where you renounce your allegiances to any foreign prince, rock the pledge of allegiance and then they play this song:

I kinda wished they showed this instead:

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Great Moments in Scrabble History, Part II

November 15, 2007

I cross the 500 point barrier for the first time, hitting 5 bingos in one game: ENPLANED, VARIANCE, NANOTUBE, ISOMERIC and CROSSTIE. I can get maybe one bingo per game, but five was completely out of control.

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