re:stocking

the annually rejiggered pitchfork readers poll (now closed) – which somewhat arbitrarily requested five songs and albums of the year, yet a full top ten of favorite songs out of from their best of the 1990s list [a fun and interesting task..i ended up with the magnetic fields' "the book of love" on top, but it might have been different another year] – also asked us to pick the year's top three live acts.

that's always a hard one, and maybe even more so since i saw more live music this year than possibly ever, thanks to a steady stream of CP assignments. robyn came pretty quickly to mind – her august show with kelis at the trocadero was the apotheosis of an emphatically summer-pop-summer, and a great reminder that she's as much of an effortless bad-ass as a performer as she is as a record-maker. (one particularly brilliant bit of stagecraft: eating a banana during the lengthy build-up of "don't fucking tell me what to do" – finishing in time to deliver just the title hook vocal live – in, if this is possible, a relatively non-sexualized, or other-than-sexualized fashion.) it also showed a fairly dramatic progression from the intimacy and simplicity of the first time i saw her into a dazzling, larger-than-life-feeling pop-star spectacle, though the difference was as much about a clear shift in her way of relating to the stage and the audience as added production fireworks (not to mention the perhaps-unfortunately ballad-free setlist.) will be interesting to see how that evolves when she comes back to play an even larger venue, the electric factory, in february. anywhow, a world-class performer, no question.

i'd thought about lcd soundsytem (whom, like fellow top-tenners joanna newsom and vampire weekend, i saw for both the first and second time this year) until i remembered about mayer hawthorne [& the county], from this vantage point easily my favorite new artist of 2009 [and that's not even accounting for the weirdly lackluster live performances of jj and the very best], whom i saw for the first-through-fourth times this year, at four substantially different venues [the most recent time, regrettably and frustratingly preventably, occasioned my missing a chance to see easily my favorite new artist of 2010, allo darlin', for the second time – but first real-full time – all in one day...], and he consistently killed it every time. the mayer hawthorne show is a well-oiled, spit-polished thing of beauty, and those four performances were far more similar than they were distinct [though the latest included some very exciting sneak previews of his new material], but i hardly minded the chance to re-experience it.

for the third slot, i picked a band i'd just seen, and really only recently listened to: stornoway, about whom i wrote this preview for city paper. the first two (and best) songs on their debut album, beachcomber's windowsill – which probably oversell the extent to which they can be categorized as "indie-pop" – bookended a set that demonstrated both rock-solid chops (instrumental and vocal) and considerable musical range, from moody, arty chamber-ish pieces (some of it verging on slightly tedious) to straight-up (and very british) folk (including a really lovely new one, "november song," performed solo and acoustic by frontman brian briggs) to a surprising amount of rocking out, particularly on the big swelling codas to a few songs. there was also briggs' endearingly nervous/nerdy banter, including recitations of inventions made in philadelphia (the slinky, lemon meringue pie...) but the best part was almost certainly the two-song encore, performed entirely unplugged and un-mic'd, which elicited some of the most genuinely enthusiastic crowd-love i've witnessed in a while. [videos of the encore songs are here and here, thanks to my cp compadres.] it was truly a heartwarming feeling to be in that crowd.

let alone recapping the year in live music, this past week alone has been stellar. last friday i watched two fake-local groups – my buddy tom's band via audio and their piano-popping pals jukebox the ghost [aka cutebox the most] – sock-rock a fun-happy beatles-loving crowd that seemed to consist primarily of teens and their parents, some of them in white astro-jumpsuits, with (respectively) songs about slacking, godzilla, pitch-corrected divas, and babymaking, as well as some lovably dopey banter and a frenzied rendition of "what's this" from the nightmare before christmas (also glad i stuck around for the night-closing panda-monium-inducing team-up cure cover.)

on sunday i saw the utterly ineffable nellie mckay kick some life into the bewilderingly all-over-the-place tunes from her new album – from the latin-kitsch/broadway melodrama "¡bodega!" to the meat-is-murder "unknown reggae" – as well as a bunch of the doris day numbers (and some other assorted jazz standards), a few old faves ("dog song"! "sari"!), a possibly new (?), typically beautiful/insane seasonal political number – an anti-christmas tree eco-rant inexplicably wrapped around a broken-hearted love song – and a wtf tom waits cover (awesomely, if unsurprisingly, she can do a pitch-perfect waitsian growl.) i think this was the first time i'd seen her play with a band, a trio of game if non-smiling jazzbos who set a highly amusing contrast to her preposterous, precociously giddy/girlish and befuddlingly anachronistic stage presence. her albums may be (increasingly) hit-or-miss, but her performances never fail to remind me of her truly limitless talent, eccentricity and charm. it's hard to put it words.

finally, last tuesday i trekked up to hoboken with rae to catch night seven of yo la tengo's annual 8 nights of hanukkah at maxwells [ira's account is there], something i hadn't done since 2002, when the band were very memorably joined by ray davies (whom, incidentally, i would have seen in boston over thanksgiving if hadn't, very sadly had to cancel for health reasons...) this show was similarly a pretty transcendent experience, if only because it reminded me how much i dearly love this band (you wouldn't think i'd forget something like that, having written something like this, and i didn't, really, but i maybe hadn't thought about it in a while...)

this is what they played:

HOME = "feels like going home," from ...beat your ass, a really sweet gentle one which i really should have included on home, why did i not do that? [wasn't] BORN 2 FOLLOW is a carole king cover that i didn't know, but almost of the others were familiar YLT favorites, really a solid setlist of classics, if maybe a tad obvious, but just perfect for not having seen them in a while... definitely heavy on the soft pretty ones (season of the shark, last days of disco, shadows, little eyes, black flowers) but that's kinda how i like it, and helped set off the totally awesome noise/drone freakouts that bookended the set (the last and first tunes, respectively from the last two albums.)

they were joined for their entire set (except for "tom courtenay," since he broke a string wailing out during the late-set punk-out patch) by the amazing mr. nels cline (of wilco, nels cline singers, and assorted out-jazz excursions), in a rad eyeball t-shirt, which made the whole thing all that much more awesome, even if he sometimes made it hard to see georgia. then they came back and played two ramones covers – "pet sematary" (james on vox!) and "sheena is a punk rocker") – and were joined by openers bonnie prince billy + the cairo gang (who were also awesome! even though i barely recognized any of the songs they played...need to brush up on billy's last half-decade) to close the night with lou reed's "heavenly arms" (which tbh i only know from el perro del mar's closer.) heavenly indeed...

home

home
home
home
home
home
home
take me home...

1 home • low
2 home • glasser
3 home • david byrne + brian eno
4 you remind me of home • ben gibbard
5 home in your heart • solomon burke
6 my home is nowhere without you • herman düne
7 you're my only home • the magnetic fields
8 nestbuilding • the french
9 home time (lemon & lime) • joe goddard
10 come on home to me • tracey thorn with jens lekman
11 climbing high mountains • sam amidon
12 let me go home • sam cooke with the soul stirrers
13 feels like home • randy newman
14 home again • kate taylor
15 i'm comin' home • arthur alexander
16 i'm going back home • nina simone
17 home sweet home • flatt + scruggs
18 this is where i belong • the kinks
19 home (RAC mix) • edward sharpe + the magnetic zeros
20 (far from) home • tiga
21 home • kelis
22 home • lcd soundsystem
23 this must be the place (naïve melody) • talking heads
[ross of love, november 2011]

mmm. home has been on my mind a lot this year – as the house i moved into last june has become ever-increasingly (and through no small effort along the way, even if it now feels almost effortless) more homely, and as i've chosen to spend more and more time away from that home to be with a person who now feels more like home to me than i might have ever expected, and as i've been contemplating leaving this city which has been my home for the last ten years (and this amazing home of a neighborhood, which may forever still belong to both of us) so that we can make a new home together.

and it just so happens that two of my favorite songs of the year – by one of my well-established very favorite artists, and by a unusually intriguing newcomer – are titled "home": glasser's bewitching, almost eerie, yet magnificently warm and comforting, harmony-rich marvel (the first song of hers i heard, and far and away the standout of her striking debut album) and lcd soundsystem's generous, gently epic album-closer (which i overlooked for several months until i found myself dancing to it one fine night...), which might just stand as my favorite song of 2010, if only because it shares some clear, undoubtedly not coincidental similarities to my favorite song of ever... [and also because – at least the way i hear it – it's a bold and thorny exploration of one of my favorite themes; gleaning positivity and resilience from togetherness and connection in the face of confusion and frustration: if you’re afraid of what you need / look around you – you’re surrounded / it won’t get any better.]

obviously, a mix-tape was in order. this was not too difficult to make – an obvious example of the "itunes search" mix-making method, which often feels a bit distressingly easy, though perhaps it just presents different sorts of challenges. in this case, a title search for "home" yielded over 500 songs in my library, so there was a good bit of narrowing-down to do... and of course, naturally, the idea was to make a mix about the concept of home, not just of songs with "home" in the title. i think it turned out quite nicely, with a simple, logical conceptual shape, and a lot of standouts both shiny-new and golden-olden.

apart from the aforementioned pair (which i made almost-bookends, the second and penultimate tracks), i was happy to find a few other suitable selections from 2010 – especially the sam amidon (from an album i'd love to share as widely as i can) and tracey thorn (not the most strictly topical inclusion, but hard to resist a collaboration from two of my favorite singers, even on a cover of a songwriter [lee hazelwood] with whom i've never really connected.) and it wouldn't have felt right to leave off kelis, who also had a great song titled "home" (on a conceptually beautiful album that i didn't quite manage to connect with as much as some people) just because including it required a slightly sharper-than-planned veer into dance-tronica from the largely soul/folk/songwritery oriented main body of the mix.

similarly, i was ambivalent about using the edward sharpe/magnetic zeros song which somehow, without my real awareness, has apparently become something of a modern standard, since i have a probably unfairly suspicious opinion of them/him (it's not even a him, right?) (like, why do they have to have such an obnoxiously long, stupid name?), but it seemed callous to leave it off, since it is so obviously apropos. a bit dubious of this so-called "remix artist collective" too, but always nice to switch things up with a remix.

meanwhile, just like my dear mr. byrne, my b'lov'd darren hayman also happens to have a song called "home," by his old/best-known band hefner, the last track on my favorite of their albums and evidently a personal favorite of his. but i couldn't quite bring myself to include it, even though it is, i guess, topical – i just don't really like it for some reason, maybe because for whatever reason darren himself isn't the main singer – so instead (though i could have done both) i used "nestbuilding," by his other old/obscure band the french, which is a totally beautiful song i really love, even if it sort of ends up being more about a relationship than the ostensible topic of fixing up an old house. still works i think.

otherwise, thanks to itunes for helping me discover the lovely low-flying low tune (more like a hymn, or a mantra) which wound up as an almost preternaturally perfect opener, beautifully setting up the more unsettled/ambivalent/homesick/searching/yearning first half of the mix (home to several more of my favorite songs, especially for singing; the ben gibbard and magnetic fields) before the midpoint tone-shift into homecoming hootenanny/celebration/dance party.

also: i couldn't really think of a good title (for the mix, or for this post) but i guess i'm already there.

as usual, let me know if you want a copy. limited edition potato-stamp printed artwork now available...

l8 > never

so: i never posted my 2008>2009 new years mix, due to a couple of fairly minor production flaws that i have been meaning to correct ever since but never actually got around to until, well, today. in fact, it was almost entirely fixed as of sometime this past spring, but i only just got around to tidying up the final loose ends tonight, as a sort of warm-up/deck-clearing exercise prior to launching into 2010 mix (about which more soon! i'm excited!) in earnest.

it turned out to be almost entirely painless, and now i am proud to present to you, in its entirety, in two convenient halves, at 192kbps, rarely heard since its initial unveiling at the stroke of midnight on 1/1/2009, the official ross of love 2008 new years eve dance party mix: 2K8<3!!

first half
second half

download and enjoy! my tendency is to think of this mix as the weakest of my four year-end mashymixes to date (with '09 as second weakest), though that may be somewhat unfairly due to the too-long-standing glitch sitch (which has meant that i've probably not listened to it nearly as much as the others.)

listening now, i do think it has a lot of nice parts, scattered throughout and especially in the second half, but i'm not particularly fond of the opening section (always surprisingly tricky to do for these mixes, for some reason) and there are some (neglible) sound quality issues in various places (definitely a downside of the generally nifty traktor native mix feature, which i used for the last two years, but will not be able to use for this year's mix, because it's not in the new version of traktor that works on my computer.) though there is plenty of great music here, 2008 feels like a slightly weird, off year from this juncture (for instance: santogold shows up three times here; where has she been since? also, M.I.A.'s here four times, in various forms. sorry, that won't be happening in 2010.) anyway...still a very good, worthy mix - i'm happy with it, and particularly happy to have it as a finished piece.

here's a tracklist for ya:

first half
Ross of Love vs. Solange/Beastie Boys/Portishead/M83/Hot Chip/Lil Wayne vs. Ross of Love
Four Tet / Ribbons
Flo Rida / Low
Usher / In This Club
T.I. / Whatever You Like
Santogold / Creator
El Guincho / Antillas
Buraka Som Sistema ft. M.I.A. / The Sound of Kuduro
Benga / Night
Britney Spears / Womanizer
Sway / Say It Twice
Soulja Boy ft. A-rab / Yahh!
Jazmine Sullivan / My Foolish Heart
Keri Hilson ft. Lil Wayne / Turnin' Me On
Janelle Monae / Violet Stars Happy Hunting!
The Roots / I Will Not Apologize
Throw Me The Statue / Lolita
Jordin Sparks ft. Chris Brown / No Air
Ne-Yo / Miss Independent
The Knux / Cappucino
Jay-Z ft. Santogold / Brooklyn Go Hard
The Clash / Straight To Hell
T.I. ft. Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne / Swagga Like Us
The Very Best / Tengazko
Erykah Badu / Soldier
Black Milk / Losing Out
Rhymefest with Mark Ronson / Foolin' Around
Beyoncé / Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)
Pop Levi / Never Never Love
Erupt / Click My Finger
Alphabeat / Fascination
Missy Elliott / Shake It Like A Pom Pom
Kid Rock / All Summer Long
Hercules & Love Affair / Hercules Theme
Sugababes / Girls
Kardinal Offishal ft. Keri Hilson / Numba 1
The Bug ft. Warrior Queen / Insane
Vampire Weekend / Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
Max Tundra / Which Song
Yelle / Ce Jeu
Dragonette / Marvelous
Spiss / My Slang
Madonna ft. Justin Timberlake / 4 Minutes
Busta Rhymes / Don't Touch Me (Throw Da Water On Em)

second half
Juvelen / Don't Mess
Ashlee Simpson / Boys
David Byrne & Brian Eno / Strange Overtones
Invisible Conga People / Cable Dazed
Kanye West / Paranoid
Kleerup / Thank You
Aeroplane ft. Kathy Diamond / Whispers
Hercules & Love Affair / You Belong
Diskjokke / Staying In
Was (Not Was) / Your Luck Won't Last
Neon Neon / Raquel
Midfield General / Disco Sirens
The Chap / Ethnic Instrument (Joakim Remix)
Pink Skull / Gonzo's Cointreau
Santogold / L.E.S. Artistes (XXXchange Remix)
Nomo / All The Stars
A. R. Rahman & M.I.A. / O... Saya
Rye Rye / Shake It To The Ground
Lindstrøm / Grand Ideas
Tittsworth / Haiku
Busy Signal ft. M.I.A. & Rye Rye / Tic Toc
Estelle ft. Kanye West / American Boy
Snoop Dogg ft. Robyn / Sexual Eruption (Fyre Department Remix)
Cloetta Paris / Beat Street
Cut Copy / Out There On The Ice
Rihanna / Disturbia
Fuck Buttons / Sweet Love For Planet Earth (Andrew Weatherall Remix)
Kelley Polar / Entropy Reigns in the Celestial City
Wiley / Wearing My Rolex
Rex The Dog / Bubblicious
Johan Agebjörn ft. Sally Shapiro / Spacer Woman From Mars
Alphabeat / Fantastic 6 (Radioclit Mix)
Hot Chip / Ready For The Floor
Air France / Collapsing At Your Doorstep
Barack Obama / "You Have Earned The New Puppy"
Young Jeezy / My President Is Black