i ain't got nothing to be scared of

i remember when the last yo la tengo album came out. rabi and i had just broken up for the first time, and i bought it for her. i had a promo copy which i'd been listening to a lot, and it was doing me some good. i wanted to burn her a copy but she said she'd end up buying it anyway so i just bought it for her instead, at spaceboy records (which has since moved down the street, and which is closing shop for good tomorrow), the night it came out, when i was on south street, with liza, to see the reunited joe jackson band at the TLA. i never purchased a full-art copy for myself, because i preferred the artwork that i made out of a magazine ad for the album plus the throwaway outer cover of rabi's copy (with a construction paper beach ball under the cd on the tray card.) anyway, summer sun's comforting glowy warmth notwithstanding, rabi and i were both so miserable that we were back together within a week.

critical consensus to the contrary, i think it's just as lovely as anything (or possibly everything) else they've done. which is a lot of albums, many of which i've picked up used here or there over the years (my first encounter with them was and then nothing... which i ordered from BMG my freshman year.) i'm pretty sure that makes this the first YLT album i've ever bought new, full-price: i am not afraid of you and i will beat your ass.

i didn't buy it right away. well-documented fandom notwithstanding, the first time i saw it on the counter at a.k.a. i balked at the cover image. (audibly.) yeah, it's really ugly. and the title is, well, very silly, at best. at worst, they're at least sending a clear message.

which is not about the music. obviously they care about the music. now i'm listening to it.....well, it's good. it's not like i had any worries that it wouldn't be good. not really any illusions that it would be incredible. (though i'd be happy to be proven wrong.) yo la don't really do incredible, they just do always, consistently, very, very, unimpeachably good. i can't say much more about this album: it will take time to sink in, and i plan to listen to it a lot in the background as i make my way through war and peace. if that doesn't work maybe i'll try the tortoise box set. (i need a good excuse to pick that up - maybe it can be the reward if i finish w+p in a month.)



YO. what is going to be my favorite album this year? i don't know. there's nothing obvious, nothing that's grabbed me like think tank or the sunset tree, or funeral. or satanic panic even. (or oh inverted world or figure 8, but obv.) it's not that i haven't really gotten into any albums. as previously mentioned, many of those have been discoveries of records from a year or two ago. (ashlee, rachel, robyn.) but no one album has stuck with me all that strongly - i have no idea what my most listened-to albums from this year would be, for instance.

condensed listening report - recent favorites and strong contenders: Girl Talk, Paris Hilton, Matmos. the Junior Boys album i picked up today as well (was going to buy it new but spotted a used copy - a promo, but with most of the art), and it is excellent, much better than their concert last week...but i'll need to spend some time with it of course. I've been listening to the Pet Shop Boys album a good deal, actually. and the Daedelus, which didn't do much initially, is growing on me. from earlier in the year, the Veronicas and the Strokes still command soft places in my heart, and i'm going to need to revisit the Neko Case and Howe Gelb and Cat Power records. James Hunter is still a cool dood. i watched the two Camera Obscura videos on YouTube today, and the songs sounded better than ever. i still want to hear the Rihanna, Justin, Beyonce, Christina, and Lily albums, though i don't expect to especially love any of them as albums. the Lupe Fiasco toons i've dled sound quite nice. to beef up the selection pool, i've ordered, largely unheard, albums by the Ark and Scanners, both of which come highly recommended from friends. so we'll keep seeing. as for Get Lonely... it's nice too.

and Yo La Tengo? whoa, they're kicking it in now! time for bed, eh?

turn up the eagles
the neighbors are listening

so much captured in eight words. setting: a house, or apartment, but it somehow seems distinctly suburban. maybe it's that the Eagles are playing, the sound of the decadent, post-hippie, money-blind california lifestyle. in the city nobody would care about what was happening with their neighbors, or certainly about whether their neighbors would care about what was happening with them. not that anybody in this scenario actually "cares" in the real sense of the word. it's all about keeping up appearances, no matter that they're as empty as the soft-rock blanketing, as empty as the reality of this relationship. would the neighbors really be interested in what was going on? if so their curiousity is just as insipid as any of it, the catty leechlike gossiping nosey parkers. we can't have that going on in our neighborhood, well i never. are the Eagles really powerful enough to drown out this shouting match? hey, listen, it's a keg party, not a domestic drama! doesn't seem any less pleasant, and it for sure means more noise pollution, not less.

imperative. first person voice and the listener is forced into the uncomfortable role of second person. this sadistic asshole - righteously jealous, maybe, but hardly the model citizen he likes to pretend - has been barking questions and commands at you all song. only now, in the last line of the reflective (by comparison, only) bridge, does it occur to him to think beyond the immediacy of him, you, the bastard; beyond his wounded private pride to his jeopardized public image; beyond these walls to what lies immediately outside, as superficial as even that is. he senses a weakness, a potential breach in the bastion of his machismo - and you better tend to it now, missy. not that you're any better. oh sure, maybe it's all beyond your control, but you're just as implicated as him, and the neighbors, and the Eagles. you probably put the record on in the first place - or maybe the bastard did, the cuckholder. now there's a sick thought, no? the still-spinning evidence of his all-too-recent presence in the household - less than an LP-side ago (unless it's the radio) - used in a desperate attempt to forestall public awareness of the situation. of the sorry state of the marriage, and its present violent manifestation, more than of the dalliance itself. but really it's all the same thing.

or maybe it was your husband who put it on. always good to set the mood with some naff AM faux-folk before you start tongue-lashing your wife. was it meant to serve as background music for an interrogation, or for extramarital fucking, or is it just part of the ever-present fabric of life, unnoticed until seized upon for some sordid purpose its creators never intended? the song leaves some questions unanswered: was there even an affair at all, or is the narrator just drunk and delusional? should our sympathies lie with the silent, probably unfaithful wife, or her irate, vindictive husband? neither option is at all appealing.

rightly, our position is with the nosey neighbors. we can't really identify with the wife, who is just as markedly absent from our perspective as she is from his (which indicates not just her utter lack of power in the situation, but her utter insignificance as well, either for him or us.) these questions and commands are not being directed at us (thank goodness!), but to an even more powerless nonagent. we're merely eavesdroppers - at liberty to judge as we please, but unmistakably unwelcome, even as an implied presence. at this point in the song, the narrator recognizes our presence - he states it as a fact, not just a possibility. but by now it's too late to try to drown out the sound. we've already heard more than we would have liked, and even the Eagles wouldn't have been less pleasant.

[originally posted on reminced, 8/26/04]

THE SIXTIES, TODAY!some thoughts on the p4k "200 greatest songs of the '60s" list

(for reference, here's the top 20 and links to the rest of the list.)

1. i like the list - i like how it's clearly not a list made by people who grew up in the '60s, but is filtered through a few decades and generations of critical reception and reconsideration. in fact, in some ways it's a particularly '00s '60s list - it would be hard to imagine some of these things on such a list made at any other point, in particular some of the more obscure girl group stuff, which probably wouldn't be on a list made even a year ago.

i also like how - although the word "greatest" is always (and deliberately) vague - this list doesn't seem to put all that much stock in "importance", often placing songs that are perhaps more musically interesting or evocative (or that haven't had their effect dulled through overexposure!) over more obvious choices. hence "think" over "respect," "gimme shelter" but no "satisfaction," and especially the zombies selections ("this will be our year" at #40!) this is all fine with me - i don't like "respect" very much, and i can live without "satisfaction." however, although i probably prefer "i can't explain" and "the kids are alright" myself, i'm still a little scandalized by the absence of "my generation."

2. i somehow doubt johnny cash and, especially, desmond dekker would have made the top 10 (!) if not for the attention they've received following their recent deaths. ray charles (appearing once, at #52) and syd barrett (two early floyd tracks in the bottom 100) don't seem to have been helped by this though. anyway, "ring of fire" (#35) is easily my least favorite song in the top 40. (sorry, but i just find it irredeemably idiotic.)

more to the point: what the hell is up with the shangri-las? three songs!? "out in the streets" in the top 20!? not to mention the kinks' "shangri-la" (#135), a mystifying selection that i really suspect might be the result of some kind of weird crossover sweep effect. (i love the kinks, but i'm not sure they needed five songs on here, and especially that one.) i guess i just don't like the shangri-las as much as some people. or they're somehow a lot more significant than i realized. "leader of the pack" is a deserved classic, though not really a great piece of music; "out in the streets" is an okay song, i guess, but - just for instance - it's hardly one of the stand-outs on that girl group box. i just don't get it. justice would be if it swapped places with the flirtations "nothing but a heartache" (#166.)

3. okay: i don't want it to seem like i'm griping, because that's fairly pointless - these lists will always provoke gripes, which are fun to make but not very productive - but more because i don't have any major complaints about either what's on it or what's not on it. it has a lot of great songs on it, and a few i haven't heard and am looking forward to checking out. and that's really all i require.

i am, however, very interested in studying the list because of what it can tell us about the current state of thought among the music-critical community. this is exactly what i'm interested in these days: how the universe of pop music is being understood and thought about, what stories are being told about it, what's considered significant or good, etc. etc. and the music of the 1960s is of particular interest since pop music culture as we know it has its roots in that decade, and its influence on contemporary music and culture are as relevant as ever.

obviously pitchfork is not wholly representative, but it is a reasonably good reflection of, at least, the online community of people who are reasonably knowledgeable about, and take an active interest in pop music. and in any case, it's rare to get such a straightforwardly quantifiable/analyzable document of contemporary perceptions of the music of the '60s. even if its usefulness shouldn't be overstated, it should prove helpful in painting some broad strokes.

4. two things that i have been particularly curious about lately, as far as current perceptions of the '60s go: cream and the four seasons. they both seem very important to me (as well as very good), but my sense has been that they are generally disregarded these days. and this list upholds that sense.

cream are absent from the list, and conspicuously so, to my mind, considering the presence of three led zeppelin songs ("dazed and confused" at #11; "whole lotta love" at #53; "what is and what should never be" at #126), not to mention four songs by the who. leaving aside the fact that two of those zep songs were on an album released in october 1969 (which is to say they are technically legitimate, but they could hardly have made much of an impact on the 1960s, and therefore feel a bit cheap to include), and that zeppelin are just such a quintessentially '70s band, the inclusion of these tracks is enough to demonstrate that the listmakers didn't have a problem with heavy, blues-based british rock. which is to say they must therefore have a problem with cream, because cream were clearly the biggest heavy blues-based british rock band of the 1960s, and "sunshine of your love," in particular, is a no-brainer of a massively influential song, and i won't say led zeppelin would have been unthinkable without cream, but there's something to that line of reasoning. (the way my dad tells it, disraeli gears was one of the most popular and inescapably big-deal albums of the late '60s, and it sounded completely new and different to his ears, with its unprecedented heaviness and use of distortion.)

(i'll admit that i don't have that much interest in listening to cream these days, but then i don't have much interest in listening to zeppelin either. my skewed presumption - based on my own experience and observations - is that both groups have a particular appeal to high-school-aged males, but for some reason folks tend to retain a fondness for zep after losing interest in cream/if they even had it in the first place.)

again, though, i'm not really interested in complaining about this omission for its own sake, i merely bring it up for the credence it lends to my theory that 1) cream tend to be ignored and underrecognised these days which 2) i think is because people's (generally negative, or else indifferent) perceptions of eric clapton's subsequent career have negatively affected their perception of his (arguably better and/or more important) earlier work (with cream and beyond) to the point that it has lost a considerable amount of esteem. this plays into the tangled web of thoughts i have about "mature" (/"dad") rock, which i will get back to expounding about at a later date.

5. as for the four seasons...they are also absent from the list. this is a good deal less surprising than cream's absence, despite the fact that the four seasons were certainly more popular, more era-defining, and, in cultural terms (and maybe or maybe not musical terms) more "important" than cream. it's not surprising because the era that they defined was the early sixties (their biggest hits were all in 1962-64) before the beatles came on the scene in 1964 and established rock as we know it as a dominant form of (white) popular music. which is to say, they were - with the possible exception of the beach boys - the biggest band of the 1960s before the beginning the rock era. which, incidentally, continued through at least the mid-90s and possibly somewhat beyond, but certainly seems, for all intents and purposes, to be over now, at least for the time being.

rock is still popular, however, and moreover it's still considered to be a big deal, and that's why, among other reasons, it's unsurprising, although striking, that the first four years of the decade, 1960-63, are representated on this list by a total of only 26 songs, as compared to 138 for the last four years, including 40 - close to a quarter of the list! - for 1969 alone. [source: michelangos matos on this ilm thread] not that the list is overwhelmingly dominated by rock: soul and pop, however you choose to define those terms, are markedly and deservedly prominent. nowhere is this clearer than the #2 slot going to the jackson five's "i want you back" - a song from 1969 that still sounds uncannily fresh today, to the extent that it almost seems unfair to include it. (i have to admit that it makes me a little uneasy for that song to be so high, since - unlike almost any other motown single from the decade - it doesn't feel particularly representative of the '60s; on the other hand it's hard to deny that the song really is that good.)

as i've mentioned above, there's a respectable amount of girl-group music on the list. girl groups are clearly hot now, which is awesome and very exciting and makes me happy. (even if three shangri-las tunes muscled out "he's a rebel," which would easily have made my top five.) i see this trend - recognizing the significance and greatness of girl-group music - as a much-needed correction to the general understanding of pop music history, as well as an appropriate corrolary to the recent wave of contemporary girl-pop.

it seems to me that the necessary (and, i should think, inevitable) next step is a reappraisal of the corresponding "boy" music of the period. which is to say, vocal-based pop by male performers as well as females. just as "girl group" can encompass a considerable range of musical styles - soul, pop, rock, country, and beyond - there is comparable diversity in male vocal pop of the '60s. this complicates matters since - absent the gender distinction - it can be harder to know where to place the boundaries with and among "staight-up" soul, doo-wop, folk-rock, garage rock, british invasion beat combos, surf music, '50s-style crooners, bubblegum pop, and so forth. (there's also confusion about how to consider groups who shifted over the course of their careers from - most commonly - straightforward pop territory towards artier or rockier or grittier or psycher or otherwise more "artistically legitimate" terrain.)

so it's a broad category, and i haven't quite figured out who counts, except that - taking the pitchfork list as exhibit A - many of the contenders don't seem to be that well regarded.

there are obvious exceptions, of course: whatever else they may have been and done, the beach boys and the beatles are clearly two of the greatest male vocal pop groups of all time - and the former are the clear winners of this poll, with the latter close behind. but it should be noted that - of the five slots each group was allotted (including one, apparently, for brian wilson's solo piano version of "surf's up"!?), only "i want to hold your hand" represents the beatles' early "vocal pop era" output [the remaining four are decidedly more 'experimental'], while the earliest beach boys cut, "don't worry baby," though it dates to '64, is far more in keeping with the "mature" (and innovative) vein of the later beach boys tunes also selected than - for instance - its A-side flip, the equally brilliant "i get around."

anyway, killer b's aside...(let's ignore the byrds too, while we're at it)...the four seasons have to be on the top of the male vocal pop heap. they seasons had 13 top ten US hits in the 1960s - which isn't quite as many as the beach boys (15) or the supremes (18) [source: wikipedia!] - nor is chart success necessarily the most relevant indicator of greatness - but it's noteworthy nonetheless. i'm hopelessly confused as to why rhino is currently re-re-releasing the monkees' albums on CD with as two-disc sets with mono and stereo versions and copious bonus tracks, while they've allowed the only decent four seasons anthology on CD to go out of print. could it perhaps be that frankie valli sings like a girl?

relevant songs that did make the cut:
monkees - daydream believer (#54), i'm a believer (#133)
tommy james and the shondells - crimson and clover (#57)
del shannon - runaway (#64)
roy orbison - crying (#85) (but no sign of "oh, pretty woman," which has got to be one of the greatest '60s rock songs)
the association - never my love (#152)
bobby darin - beyond the sea (#183)
hollies - bus stop (#186)

(i've left off the male motown groups - the miracles (#87, shamefully low for "tracks of my tears"), four tops (#110 - weird choice), and temptations (#185!?) each made it once; and stevie twice and marvin once, which means that the men of motown only barely edge out the women, as represented solely by five supremes selections, no marvelettes, martha reeves, gladys, mary, etc.)

some omissions, notable and otherwise:
the drifters (!)
the rascals (!!)
the lovin' spoonful (?)
the turtles
jan and dean
jay and the americans
gary lewis and the playboys
hermans hermits
everly brothers ("cathy's clown" and "when will i be loved" are eligible)
lots of one hit wonders i'm not going to think of,
plus all the second-tier british invasion groups -
dave clark five/spencer davis group/gerry and the pacemakers/freddie and the dreamers/wayne fontana and the mindbenders

i do note that these are all, to a greater or lesser extent, rock bands - so are the four seasons, of course; just look at their AMG entry. but even when their music is at its most rocking (the monkees' "stepping stone", the rascals' "good lovin'), a lot of it tends to be treated differently from, say, the stones, or some of the nuggets bands. the difference, possibly, has something to do with r'n'b.

this requires some further thought and research - the distinction likely seems more evident now than it did at the time, and i'd like to consider vocal pop vs. album rock market niches, soul influences, the effect of legacy, and questions of artistic intentions and "integrity." anyway...

6. an interesting point of comparison is a very recent ILM poll ranking '60s songs, which you can read here (scroll to the bottom for the list of #1-200.)

on the whole, the lists isn't really all that different in character (it is reasonably different in the actual songs), which makes sense, because i more or less assume the contributors to ILM and PFM to be on the same page. if the ILM list has slightly more interesting (=unexpected) song choices, i'd chalk that up to a small sample size. i do like their beatles picks more, btw.

an excerpt, with comments:
1 Jackson 5 - I Want You Back (wow!! by a huge margin too!)
3 Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman (i don't even know this song. so i'm kind of confused.)
17 Dionne Warwick - Walk On By (was on the pitchfork list at like #198, which seems strange in retrospect)
18 Petula Clark - Downtown (no pitchfork love)
28 Shangri-Las - Leader of the Pack (three shangri-las songs here too, but at least this is the highest. no "out in the streets", weirdos.)
41 Archies - Sugar Sugar (awesome!)
42 Cream - Badge (surprising choice, but this is definitely a very cool and strangely modern-sounding song, and of course i'm glad for the inclusion, even if it seems like a fluke of the small sample set and somebody lobbying hard.)
45 Trashmen - Surfin Bird (hmm.)
60 Monkees - I'm a Believer
71 Tommy James & the Shondells - Crimson & Clover
72 Del Shannon - Runaway
80 Lovin' Spoonful - Do you believe in magic?
97 Monkees - Pleasant Valley Sunday (very well, but what about "stepping stone"?)
114 Beach Boys - I Get Around (yeah!)
165 Who - My Generation (see, this is fine - low but at least it's there.)
180 Beach Boys - California Girls (yeah!!)
181 Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love
182 Led Zeppelin - Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
184 Troggs - Wild Thing
188 Led Zeppelin - Communication Breakdown (pretty striking difference from the pfork list in LZ choices and placement. i'd probably go for "babe" and "dazed" as my '60s zep picks. also, good call on "wild thing," another seminal moment in the development of heavy pop.)
198 Ventures - Walk, Don't Run

so the pitchforkateers "covered" their festival with a bunch of photos and some interviews, so i guess it's up to me to write about what actually happened. didn't necessarily feel much of the vibe of the website carrying over to the festival proceedings, which isn't too surprising, since at this point the site seems a little too big to have a distinct personality. it's kind of nonspecifically co-terminous with the 'indie music community,' which these days can include any number of things, but for the weekend seemed mostly predictably twenty-something white kids with clever t-shirt slogans - way too many t-shirts to keep up with, and i have to admit that as much as i completely fail to comprehend why people still think got milk? jokes are funny, what, twelve years after the ads started running?, my favorite was probably the neighborhoodies' clever-but-not-clever-clever "got tigermilk?"

anyway, i didn't find any major surprises in the audience demographics or anything else about the festival. (minor surprises: the food was not way unreasonably priced; the heat wasn't too ridiculously unbearable; the guy doing announcements on the main stage seemed to be the most bizarrely out-of-touch person they could have gotten to be the festival mouthpiece.) the line-up was certainly indierock-er than my recent tastes, but it didn't matter because 1) it was for the most part unquestionably good and interesting indie rock (and i hardly count old friends like mr. leo and the kaplan-hubley-mcnew family anyway) and 2) in between just about every band we went over to the (shaded!) auxiliary biz3 tent-stage and got our dance on to consistently great electronica dj sets.

basically this stage was where they put all the techno, hip-hop, jazz, experimental, and otherwise "other" performances (except for one rap act on the main stage mid-sunday.) definitely some rockism underlying that arrangement, or more specifically, and by extension, the festival as a whole, since despite its defensible claim of musical diversity, the highest-profile acts certainly skewed rockward. (so therefore did the draw and the audience, presumably, but fine with me if it means more space in the tent to dance to, for instance, matthew dear.) compare for instance the village voice's historically indie-as-fuck (and this year completely under my radar) siren festival, whose headliner was apparently the dance-oriented scissor sisters. (one other thing - there was a very noticeable lack of women performers at the festival: with the exception of CSS and jens lekman's backing harem, there were something like 5 or 6 women among 41 acts, and only two of them fronting their respective bands.)

a potential exception to some of this, and to most other things as well, would be os mutantes - but i'll have to get to them later, and start at the beginning.

SATURDAY

having arrived too late on day one to catch 8 bold souls (in fact, we didn't really see any jazz all weekend), we sauntered past man man on the main stage bleating that one about the mask he wears (love love for man man, but we're from the same town so you know) and let flosstradamus start our party proper. flosstra is basically chicago's version of hollertronix - slightly poppier and less booty-bass-obsessed, and of course a year or two after the curve - and with a way sillier name - and their set was not the last time that day we heard nelly's "promiscuous" improved by a creative mash-back-up. also, they brought the guest rappers and vocalists and even a high-school step/dance team. all very sweet - would definitely have liked to catch them at the club later that night.

plenty of time to get in position for the mountain goats while band of horses wrapped their set on the apparently-so-called "connector stage" (don't know where those stage names came from, but nobody used them, and also there was no list of set times either posted or provided in other form by the festival, so we relied on whatever newspaper or magazine previews we could find.) would like to have gotten to check out those horses, but annoyingly the stages were too far apart to really hear the music from one while standing reasonably close to the other, and yet too close together for bands to be playing on both at the same time. (meaning you had to either wander back and forth between each set without ever getting close, or else choose to fight through the crowd for one band and completely miss the set before it on the other stage.)

anyway - mr. goats and mr. hughes were having a grand old time and did not disappoint us neither. it was quite a crowd-pleasing set, opening with "jenny" and including both "cubs in five" and "no children," along with "southwood plantation rd." and "dance music" (the only one from sunset tree but ok) and a song from his first 7". two (i think?) new songs which were quite lovely, especially the one about walking around barefoot by the expressway in the autumn and falling down and lying in the grass. also a franklin bruno cover (cuz he was playing piano) and closing "terror song" - apparently by somebody/thing called furniture huschle - which he introduced by saying we had to sing it with him because we'd someday find ourselves in a situation where we'd want to have that song by our side. thought it might be "this year"... but no.

anyway, the during the mgs set i completely forgot that there was the whole rest of the festival going on, which was a nice feeling. but there was, and realizing that i still couldn't stand destroyer my fourth time inadvertently seeing him/them, i went to check out ghislain poirier, whose name the ultra-laidback biz3 announcer (was that damon?) could at least be bothered to pronounce. pretty neat - reminded me of a mellower dj /rupture, without so much abstract noise. definitely noddable; sometimes even dancy. and of course he had that hip french canadian look going.

art brut then i s'pose - a good time, much as anticipated, though probably not as exciting since i'd seen them before, even if i felt like i could see them better this time. eddie was funny about the polish barber giving him "the most britpop haircut he'd ever had" and saying usually he'd tell us all to go form our own bands but that in this case that would really be too many bands. i didn't realize he was wearing those cool socks though! the problem is that only at most two-thirds of their songs are really good enough, and of course those are weighted towards the end of the set (the part i saw at the church, but left before this time.) so i stayed through "modern art" and "rusted gun of milan" but only heard "emily kane" as i was heading to the other end of the park.

staying for a good half of their set, plus the very long and disorganized port-a-potty line, meant that i missed the beginning of spank rock and only saw their mediocre mid-set (was hoping "backyard betty" would be late but apparently they opened with it.) it was crowded and hot in the tent and we weren't really feeling their groove (naeem juwan is a less effective hypeman than he is an emcee, and even armani xxxchange's beats - the best part of the outfit in my book - didn't always come across so well on the 'floor) so we ducked out, and only caught the closing "sweet talk" from a ways back. it looked pretty wild though, with a stage full of dancers from the audience and naeem and his buddy both on top of the speakers, gangster-leaning back. given the chance i'd still like to catch them in their philly "playground" before they explode.

we met up with kate in line for fish tacos, as ted leo's yelps to "where have all the rude boys gone" and something from tyranny became audible, and i was like "aw, teddy!!..." i hadn't realized he was gonna play the good stuff, i guess, or i'd let the fact that i've seen him a few times a few years back outweigh how great i performer i knew he was... well anyway, i didn't position myself to see his set, so we just sat and ate our tacos and listened to ted sing "timorous me" and cover "police and thieves" as we moved up to get a good spot for what we thought was the futuremen. except it turned out to be the walkheads instead. actually it was the walkmen. bummer, dude. they were fine enough the first time i saw them, but i had no real interest in seeing a third time. and even angela (a bigger fan than me) is not into the new record. watching that tall guy with his ugly scruff and reddening face wail inexplicably upward just made me kind of uncomfortable. but it wasn't a total loss: they played "the rat" third, so we rocked, if a bit formulaically, to that, and then high-tailed it.

cool b/c that way i caught the end of matmos' set (crazy burbling wonky party house with a guy playing a little euphonium(?) with a balloon in it, and drew with all kinds of effects on his mic - really wish i had seen the rest of that, and gotten to dance to it!) and we all caught matthew dear's from the beginning. kate and i, at least, stayed for almost all of it, and were pretty tempted to stay for the rest (but ang's futuretxt insisted otherwise) - anyway, dear ruled. he started by dropping an already fully-formed groove, and built it slowly but surely for the next half-hour, mostly staying in recognizable micro(not-micro)-house territory but with a fair amount of diversity and definitely getting more maximal. he never got on the mic, which i kept hoping for, nor did he play anything i could pinpoint as his (but i guess he's got a new lp coming out), but he would periodically release these great exciting swooshes of sound - it's like a big wind coming to sweep us up! - it's like a rollercoaster! - it's like the el! and need i say the dancing was some of the most fun and intense i've had in a while.

maybe it was some of that energy that carried forth and made the futureheads seem particularly exciting - because i certainly enjoyed them even more than i do on record, even standing quite far back and joining in midset (missing "meantime", ang's favorite, but at least she caught it.) it's not just because they're cute - although the main guy (ross?)'s sweater vest ensemble was kind of adorably clueless, and naturally they have accents. their music is cute but rocking in a very different way from most cute rock indie bands. maybe art brut is a good comparison. not sure about all this xtc talk, but okay. anyway, i bounced a lot and sang along loudly, and especially when they finished the set with possibly my three favorite songs from the debut; "carnival kids", "man ray" (the closer), and especially "hounds of love," which they made into a so-called "game."

at that point, a-trak and his tent-party was the obvious consensus choice over the silver jews, whom i might have happily sat and listened to almost any other hot summer night. as it was i just heard parts of "smith and jones forever" and "animal shapes" as i went to the bathroom, and "pet politics" as we walked to the train - and it all sounded impressively good and mellow - but that was good enough. a-trak didn't make his turntablist genius excessively apparent, but that's probably part of the point. he did pull off some fly (as in on-the-) mash-up-mixing, like when he played outkast rapping over a different outkast track. it was similar to hollertronix/flosstradamus style party spinning, but nothing wrong with that. we retreated to the fence and practiced our bootyshake.

SUNDAY

okay, sunday. again we got there around 2:00, this time missing the cline/parker quartet (a.k.a. tortoise and wilco guitarists play the jazz they wanted to all along) and danielson (are they successfully convincing people that they are a different band than the danielson family/lle? it kind of seems like it) but whatever. we were just in time for jens lekman. who was robbed with his 1/2 hour timeslot (coming all the way from swedeland? with the ho-hum midwest national getting an hour just afterward?), more so since he only had time for six songs, all of which he'd done at the church last week. (and only one was from his album album. i kept perversely wanting "black cab" to turn into "a higher power," since it's the same chords.) but that's okay, because they are good songs, and he is irresistable. and so is his cohort of six female instrument-players, who as alyssa and i were discussing today aren't exactly a band so much as some back-up performers, who just-maybe might not all have been selected for their instrument-playing ability. which is not to say the horn lines weren't tight. jens said he would sit somewhere in the park and play more songs. so we spent a while looking, but we didn't find him.

too bad, because nothing much else was going on. cansei de ser sexy (why do we have to refer to them by acronym, when, for example, the harder to pronounce, and less fun to say, bonde do role, or however you damn spell it, get their full name said/mangled?) were entertaining for a while but not quite worth the crowd heat, or something - well, they seemed to promise excitement but it wasn't actually that exciting, although the lead singer gal was pretty excited. whatever. if they played "let's make love and listen death from above" (everyone ok with that rendering of the title?) i didn't hear it.

didn't hear cage or liars either (well, heard liars a little bit, but it just sounded like droning and drumming to me), i guess cause we were looking for lekman and also checked out the rock poster show. by the way, the most interesting thing at the various booths was definitely the 'rock for kids' charity, i think, which was having a silent-auction of mix-cds made by many of the performers at the festival. last i checked john darnielle's was going for $225. very cool idea. wish i could have looked at some of those tracklists.

we regrouped (and reunited with kate) for aesop rock/mr. lif. good but not great - started and ended better than it middled, despite a decent showcase for the dj. they ruined their momentum on a weak dancehall-style joint, and only got it back with "fast cars, danger, fire, knives" and closing "daylight." but it was fun to see ace spitting live, even if i couldn't understand a lot of what either of them were saying. and the discrepancy between his and lif's styles didn't seem all that great.

what else. well, unlike most people i haven't managed to figure out why i should be interested in mission of burma (well, i know why i should be), so it was an easy choice to avoid that crowd and opt for ada. she started a bit late, and got off to a kind of funny start with something that wasn't quite danceable enough, but ultimately she did not disappoint - a few abrupt transitions didn't detract from a steady stream of fun new elements to the mix, and she seemed to be playing around with the tracks more than matthew dear had, or at least more obviously. "luckycharm" (her one on erlend's dj-kicks) got some recognition applause - i don't know anything else by her (yet) but that should change. it was all peachy and lovely until a very abrupt (and i think unintentional) ending. oh whoops.

then it was time for the home stretch, the mainstage heavy-hitters, which unfortunately meant that was it for us for german techno. i decided to follow the ladies back to the main area for devendra banhart rather than watch glenn kotche do his solo drum thing, (though i did check out his set-up and it looked like it would be pretty cool), mostly to make up for the several times i'd tried to see db and it didn't work out. i guess i should have caught him when he was just a freak and not so freaky though, because i wasn't that into his deal, even if it was quite appropriate for the surroundings. shirtless long-haired folk jams and all that. but it was nice enough to have it in the background while yo la set up (well, except for "just like a child", which we could barely hear but still danced to in the middle of the picnic-blanketers.)

of course it was wonderful to see yo la tengo again. well, of course. they were playing new songs, exclusively i think, presumably to appear on the putatively-acronymed IANAOYAIWKYA. but they all sounded good, good and yolatengoey. i liked "the weakest part", i think it was called, all tinkly and with georgia singing. i liked their discoey piano song which was probably a cover. i liked ira's ripping noisy guitar playing on the long song with a repeating bass part. he was funny and charming ("some of you are probably wondering why we're wearing pants...well we've been together for over twenty years now and you should be aware that we always go the extra mile to look good; for you, the audience.") and james is the best. i don't know why i thought it was a good idea to leave after four songs.

well, i do, it was so we could get up close to see spoon, because of how awesome it had been to see them up close last summer - even though some of that intensity was because it was inside and dark, and yo la tengo are probably a better band to see in that particular setting, and they seemed particularly on and enjoyable that day, and, if you do the math, there are way more songs ylt could conceivably have played that i'd be excited to hear... all things that occurred to me later, but whatever, i don't really regret the decision. too bad though that we essentially couldn't hear the rest of their set at all, though i could look back and see them rocking out.

anyway, we did get decently close for spoon, and it was decently solid. they absolutely know how to play their songs, and basically they are great, although perhaps i was hoping it would somehow be great in a new and exciting way even my fourth time seeing them. the most exciting thing was that they finally played "stay don't go" (which i always yelled for the other times - good thing to say for an encore, but that's not the whole reason.) sadly, britt did not beatbox; they did it with drums and maracas. "paper tiger" and "they never got you" were especially good. nothing from the first three albums. two new songs sounded like spoon songs. britt said "this is a cool festival. it's a chic festival. we're into it." and he was completely serious saying that, which made him seem like a weirdo. but clearly he is in fact too cool for all of us. (unlike ylt, who are too cool but will never let themselves get too cool for us.) so, cool.

and then that was that, except for the little matter of the rather insanely improbable festival headliners, who probably a solid majority of the audience had never heard, but were nevertheless allowed to be legends in a foreign land, at least for the night: os mutantes. but first, i ran into john williams. hi john. jonah too. we'd heard unkind rumors that this version of o.m. was more like a "santana/lounge-band playing mutantes songs" and so my expectations were accordingly unfathomable (really, who could know what to expect) - but anyway it was great and extremely fun, and just so cool for it to be happening at all, so yeah. i understand where those naysayers were coming from - the band and stage set-up were maybe a tad unnecessarily large, and there was something of a crosby-stills-nash vibe about the first few tunes (even before they launched into full-on "judy blue eyes" doot-do-doots on, i think, "tecnicolor") - but on balance i think that's an unfair and unrealistic and certainly unfun assessment. i mean, these guys have always had their cheesy smooth-pop side (especially after their first couple albums, but even, for instance, "baby", which is on their debut), and who would begrudge them a few bells and whistles and a polished studio-grade touring band for their thirty-year reunion?

besides, once they got into the meat of the set - "baby" and silly dance-blast "cantor de mambo" - everyone else was having too much fun dancing and marvelling to care. they were totally doing the hits. ang and kate - sitting by the gate since diplo's set was done by the time they got bored and went over there - wanted me to head to the exits early, but when they started playing "a minha menina" - and then, better yet - "bat macumba" (!!) - forget it. as they were finishing up "bat macumba" i went and danced with the crazy brazilian flag waving contingent nearby, and then ran bursting through the air over towards k+a, and as we walked around the park to get out, the mutants closed with "panis et circenses". and i was happy. mmmhmm.

Cyclical Headaches: DOTW and "Dad Rock"

Title: Feels Like Friday!
Format: CD-R (80 min)
Date: Thursday night, 13 July 2006
Packaging: white sleeve with "weekly calendar" artist list on back; tracklist inside written on guest checks from petit 4.
Notes: made for Katie for her last Friday at p4 (our last day working together.)

Contents:
1. I Met Him On A Sunday - The Shirelles
2. Welcome to the Working Week - Elvis Costello
3. St. Monday - Billy Bragg
4. On a Monday - Ry Cooder
5. Tuesday Morning - The Pogues
6. Hooray For Tuesday - The Minders
7. Why Don't You Write Me - Simon and Garfunkel
8. This Time - Los Lobos
9. Six Days - DJ Shadow
10. W.E.E.K.E.N.D. - Arling and Cameron
11. Friday On My Mind - The Easybeats
12. Friday - Joe Jackson
13. Friday Night - Lily Allen
14. At The Club - The Drifters
15. Friday I'm In Love - The Cure
16. Dancing Alone - Ashlee Simpson
17. Friday Night Saturday Morning - Nouvelle Vague
18. A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays" - De La Soul
19. Sunday Morning - Margo Guryan
20. Every Day Feels Like Sunday - Of Montreal
21. Seven Day Weekend - Elvis Costello and Jimmy Cliff
22. Wishing the Days Away (Ballad Version) - Billy Bragg
++ Creating Cyclical Headaches - Prefuse 73 + 4 Tet [prefuse 77 tet?]

(you might have noticed...*)

at first the days of the week theme was just going to be a loose concept that not necessarily all the songs would fit, but i came up with so many appropriate songs that it basically became the strict theme. most days-of-the-week songs are about working or partying or both, which are both relevant things for katie and me, plus she likes to talk about days feeling like other days (i.e. "it feels like a thursday"), and we always talk about "fun friday," with greater or lesser irony, depending. so anyway, this was her going-away present.

"i met him on a sunday" is a classic of the "days-of-the-week song" genre (that is, songs where they list all the days, not just songs about one specific day) that happens to start with the first day of the week. i thought about using laura nyro's awesome cover, but then, the original is perfectly fine.

"welcome to the working week" is practically synonymous with "intro track" in my book [being the intro track of e.c.'s entire career] - so much so that i could hardly let myself put it as track one - also, it doesn't mention any days, but it's clearly a week-cycle song, and an ironic song for an end-of-job mix. it's so fraught for me that i can't actually comprehend how well it works in this context, since the weirdness of its failure to be followed by "miracle man" is just too glaring. but that's me, not katie. (who, btw, sort of dislikes e.c. but the song's short too!)

three intro tracks in, "st. monday" kind of starts things off in earnest - a song about not working on monday, which is appropriate because the shop is closed then. luv this tchune too, even though the rest of the album (england, half english) is a bit naff. "on a monday" isn't really a monday song - not that there aren't other obvious ones by the bangles, mamas and papas, new order, etc. - or a work song for that matter, but it is a classic "days of the week" song (that is, mentioning all the days in order, DOTW from here on), which is a form that could easily fill its own mix cd and more.

for some reason tuesday has two of the best songs about it, and they really seem to be reasonably about it, which is even weirder. (i forgot and/or declined to include men without hats' "on tuesday," though it is also pretty great.) i was stumped for wednesday and thursday - apart from duke ellington's "zweet zurzday," which i had on but then took off - but an amg song title search i did after completing the mix revealed some things i'd overlooked in my own collection - one "thursday" by morphine and another on goldie's incredible dj-mix; the undertone's "wednesday week" (i thought of e.c.'s but didn't choose it for obvious reasons), and fischerspooner's "wednesday." none of that matters much, but i did kick myself for forgetting tori amos' "wednesday," which is one of the better songs on an album i like very much (scarlett's walk), and, upon consideration, is more or less about the day. [and so, i included it, in between tracks 6 and 7, on the amended version of the cd i just burned myself. there's enough room too!]

well anyway, it's no great mystery why everyone writes songs about sunday and saturday and friday and monday instead of thursday and wednesday. (because they're kind of boring, and run together, even if one of them is the fake weekend.) and so instead i included a string of DOTW songs, which are always kind of about the humdrum doldrums of waiting for the weekend to arrive. "why don't you write me" only qualifies because of the bridge - but that bridge is totally classic, with each day bringing the contemplation of a different form of suicide. (also, the "writing" theme nicely follows up the bit in "hooray for tuesday" about letters and postcards.)

"this time" cleaves so close to the DOTW formula that it sounds, well, formulaic, but it does fit the mellow midweek mood. "six days" is almost obvious in a similar way, but it's still totally sweet. i wanted to use the diplo mash-up of col. bagshot's "six day war" (the original sample for the shadow track) with "lean back", for obscurist purposes, but the transition didn't work as well, and it's just not as musically satisfying.

"w.e.e.k.e.n.d." is both a ridiculous pastiche (i guess?) of the DOTW genre and by-default constituent. i think of it as ushering in the second (and more important) section of the mix, which is the part about friday and the weekend. the transition isn't quite neat though since "friday on my mind" starts out with "monday morning feels so bad...", and we have to go through the DOTW again to get to the partytime part, which is basically the chorus and the rest of the song. this (at least the latter part of it) and several of the songs that follow also fit into the genre of "weekend songs," a category which is discussed at the very beginning of this deservedly-lauded ilm thread, and which is worth more elaborating at some point.

joe jackson's "friday" was in some ways the genesis of this whole mix (way back in april, on good friday in fact, i wanted to make a mix for katie and petit 4 that included this but started with "the kids are alright", which sadly got dropped here for obvious reasons. but i still want to use it to start a mix sometime.) "she gets paid on friday" is a great hook line. i also like the part where joe goes through all the other days that he's "not talking about."

"friday night" by lily allen is not really a very good day of the week song, since it only mentions friday in the title and first line and is actually about her conflict with some [expletive transformed into funny boingy noise] at the club. but it does set up the next few songs which are also about going out to clubs. plus i'm excited about lily allen these days, or maybe just pop-hiphop-ska in general. "at the club" likewise only mentions friday in the first line ("well friday night has finally come around"), but i always think of it strongly as a friday song, mostly because i see at as the counterpart to "saturday night at the movies" (even though the narrator of this song says "don't ask me to go" to the movies - well, not on friday night anyway.) nice la bamba rip too.

so i guess "friday i'm in love" doesn't fit here because it's not actually a friday night clubbing song, but i wanted to delay it a bit since it is such an obvious (and essential) fun friday song. did i consider for a second not including it? even if the best thing about it is those first seven (!) glimmering notes and the half-a-beat-before-you-expect-it crash of the intro. i also thought it was a nice set-up for "dancing alone", even though that's actually more an homage to billy idol, plus ashlee shouts out a different cure song in the chorus. i definitely think of this as a friday night song too (in particular it makes me think of dancing alone at the 700 club), even though it's sequenced on the album right after "sunday morning blues", which isn't quite right. (ashlee has her own DOTW song, of course: "pieces of me." i considered including it, but it doesn't really fit the formula that well, since her week is only two days long - monday and tuesday - and i don't know where it would go on the mix.)

as a coda to the "going out on friday night" section (the strongest high point of the mix, energy-wise - which is ironic since katie and i are both typically too tired or having-to-work-saturday to actually go out on friday), we have "friday night, saturday morning." not in the jaunty specials original as made famous by rich's iPod, but the downbeat, almost hypnotic nouvelle vague rendition. either would have worked, i guess, but i particularly like this version, which might be my favorite cut on the nouvelle vague album. (did you know that if you look at the cd upside down it says "angen allannou"?), and it's nice to have down-tempo cut for saturday day.

finding saturday songs (saturday night in particular) is almost too easy, and it did seem necessary to have at least one. de la soul's "jam" is an old favorite, and it stays on topic (the chorus even includes a shout-out to the "five days to work") better than most. despite the jump in energy levels, the radio announcer intro fit well after the closing sound effects of the last song, and the awesome drum groove outro leads beautifully into the awesome drum fill intro of the margo guryan song. which also happens to be practically perfect in every way. "every day feels like sunday" singlehandedly alludes to happiness, unemployment, the smiths, and the joke in the name of this miz - and that's just in the title phrase, since i have no idea what the lyrics are about. plus of montreal are a pivotal band around here, in case you couldn't tell, and this is a fine, strong song.

it kind of feels like a last track, honestly, so i sort of hear the rest as "bonus material", or at least a postscript/coda section. indeed, "seven day weekend" was a bonus track on the ryko reissue of blood and chocolate that for some reason was not included on the rhino rereissue (annoyingly, since it means i kind of have to keep both copies) - it's not that bad. in fact i quite like it; it's totally fun, especially the drumming, and it's a perfectly adequate DOTW song with a couple great lines ("if it isn't thursday anymore it must be friday.") "wishing the days away", on the other hand, is prime DOTW song and an absolutely beautiful ballad (in this case - the original rock version was another angelliliPod favorite) in its own right, imbing the potentially bland formula with considerable emotional nuance: "on monday i wished it was tuesday night so i could wish for the weekend to come" says volumes about how we relate to time in a simple phrase. fittingly, it's also a lovely song about missing someone too (i don't really understand the political undercurrent to the lyric, so i'll just ignore that.)

and it's a shame that "sunday night just keeps on rolling" is not the name of the really cool 8-minute instrumental track at the end of the first múm album, but is instead the kind of boring 8-minute instrumental track that comes right before it. because i would have used it to close this mix if it had a different title. (though "slow bicycle" is fitting enough for katie, i suppose.)

one comment - i notice that this cd is fairly heavily slanted towards music i associate with my dad: artists i first heard from him (elvis, billy, ry, the pogues, lobos, joe) and even songs i know he particularly likes (the drifters tune.) not sure why that is except that the DOTW formula tends to be employed by rootsy rock songwriter types, which is to say what i guess some people call "dad rock" (a la the pfm, i think, review of wilco.) if that's a negative stigma then i don't quite agree, although i have learned that listeners of my demographic tend to have some critical difficulty with it.

i particularly recall, the first time tara came over to my house, playing her los lobos' kiko and her being pretty much bewildered and weirded out by it, probably saying something about how it's music her dad would like. that's an album i cherish and have for a long time, but i think that experience substantially changed the way i hear it.

i'm curious, actually, what the critical consensus of the indieocracy would be on, say, mitchell froom's work of the late '90s, which in a sense bridges the xpn-style rootsy "adult" rock of lobos and bonnie raitt and indier-friendly songwriters like lisa germano and mark eitzel with more overtly experimental "hip" stuff like soul coughing and cibo matto (all of whom MF worked with), and which is totally a recognizable and innovative production aesthetic. (actually, S.T. Erlewine's crush on Sheryl Crow is rather relevant here.) this stuff was all, to my knowledge, critically well-recieved to the point of adulation at the time (and by audio geeks too, fersher) - and i was pretty into it, through the influence of my parents and uncle, as well as the e.c. mailing list (significant: froom and his sidekick tchad "tchad?" blake also worked on elvis' great albums from this period, and took then-attractions/now-impostors drummer pete thomas with them for many of the other things they produced) - BUT nobody really talks about it these days, and i don't know if that's because it's so obvious that nobody needs to mention it (as i always assumed, since it was obvious to me) or that people think it's bad, or that people are unaware of it. or what.

i don't think this is dad rock, exactly. people at this site have suggested three pretty completely different definitions of the term, none of which have gotten many thumbs-up as being accurate - so the meaning may be somewhat up for grabs. anyway, there is clearly a large blind-spot in this area for the critical community as i've experienced it, which is happy to embrace soul and country and, of course, the "classic" 60s-70s rockers of the third dad-rock definition, but is either disdainful of or uninterested in "mature" rock songwriters from, say, the 80s onward unless they're young on and on indie-rock labels (richard buckner, m. ward, beth orton though maybe not anymore) or had flagrant punk roots (nick cave, patti smith, tom waits arguably.) amg is an exception because they _have_ to cover all that stuff, and of course their reviewer base definitely has broader tastes than your standard music webzine. but in general i see this as a situation quite comparable to the indifference/disdain towards teenpop.

this should probably be its own post. but i do like how discussing mixtapes like this leads naturally into a discussion of more general themes in my musicmind. although these posts are way too long and splintered to work well as discussion-starters. but whatever. now for the asterisked disclaimer you've all been waiting for....

------

*so, on the first mix that i've made since writing out my list of constraints for mixes, i have neatly managed to break every one of the rules. (1) elvis costello and billy bragg each have two songs on here, although i rather like how they're grouped together both times, at the beginning and end of the cd, as if it was cycle starting over (like the days of the week, hah!) (2) she obviously knows the cure song, definitely knows the of montreal, and probably a few of the others - but i wasn't really stressing that point; she's the sort to appreciate some familiar songs mixed in - besides, how can you have a friday-themed mix without the cure? (3) again, who cares, but i've totally overused "sunday morning" recently (on 50's-60's vs. '05-'06, and, embarrassingly/unintentionally, on vulpine valentine) - with good reason, considering it rulz - and no i haven't forgotten that the de la soul song was on beauty will save the world either. i especially wanted to adhere to rule (4) (tet) on this one, b/c cakie likes him, but couldn't find a good way to open with it, so instead there's a tacked-on bonus track. ("creating circular headaches" being an apt description of the song itself, but also, i suppose, of the weekly cycle, if you want to go there.) all of this is fairly irrelevant, so i'm shifting this paragraph to the end of the post.

it's friday i'm in shorts

good friday funday! last nite i made a mixtape for katie, who i worked with today for the last time (tomorrow is her last day), all about the days of the week, and especially about friday, which is an especial day of the week. it's called feels like friday! and i'll tell you all about it in my next post, using the highly successful and professional mixtape-post format i established in my last post. (erika saw it and said "is this normal? ...do a lot of people do this?") (to which i would say no and no, i think.) but first i thought i'd just write for a bit.

np: the eraser and amnesiac, simultaneously.
(started together, dark side of oz-style. currently on "analyse" vs. "pyramid song," and it all works ok so far. eraser's still probably better by itself, but it's close. aw, just teasing.)

kicked the non-purchasing streak this week. no, last week with hillary duff and silent shout, but this time i fully embraced the nu musik community by acquiring both of the high-pro new releases this week: the illinoise guy's b-sides comp (used), and the radiohead guy's solo[/not solo yeah w/e] record (new, but only a dollar spennier, go tower!) and i like 'em both pretty good.

ooh, "the clock" vs. "pull/pulk" sounds pretty cool! i like this.

it's stunning (not stunning) how much the avalanche sounds _exactly_ like its 'parent record.' i bet few people have listened to the entirety of illinois closely enough to tell the difference, at least a few seconds at a time. i felt like i already knew it the first time i listened to it. to be honest, i felt that way about "chicago" the first time i did hear, it (i think), on the seven swans tour - but even then i could have sworn i'd heard it before. um, the point is sufjan's songs all sound the bloody same. but they sound the bloody good same, so that's all right then.

well, funky "black swan" ends up opposite moany "you and whose army," which fits fairly well, though it really ought to line up with the song it copycats, "i might be wrong" - actually, it might make it. yes it will. how awesome would it be if the rhythm synced! well.. so imbw is faster and a whole-step higher, but it still works, hey why not.

but speaking of new music, i would be remiss not to mention NEW HARMONY, my brand-spankrocking-new recorded-ukelele-accordion trio. we just had our first practice session today. at which i think we concluded what key "god only knows" isn't in. and that the tropical popsicube is a great invention.

wait, "skip divided" and "knives out" really are matching up in rhythm. for a little minute. that's crazy!

so, as bedbugs* has dutifully reported, we went to see ashlee simpson on wednesday!!! it was much as bedbugs has written. although i think he underplays the size of the crowd (which was definitely not capacity, but was hardly tiny, and the ef is a big venue), and he doesn't mention that she played "coming back for more" (which rocked me out the most, at least.) also no way those twins (i hope?) were 11, and that "no good sex" line was _my_ joke, but whatever - i'll ammend his post in his comments. i will say though that the thing which struck me most - probably shouldn't have, if i ever watched tv or paid attention to media not in music compact disc form - was that she is so manifestly not her persona.

she's a silly, giggly, awkward, goofball girl and dare i say it doesn't seem so smart or, certainly, savvy. fair enough, and not that she wasn't energetic and clearly having a lot of fun and singing pretty well and entertaining to watch (q.v. her, um, dancing.) but it makes for some dissonance with the dark, edgy, angst-ridden - or, at least, deeply emotionally conflicted and, crucially, self-aware - ashlee i've gotten to know from listening to i am me these last few months. i can totally see how that same person i saw prancing around on stage could be that self-knowingly "beautifully broken" ashlee of the record - not many of us betray our emotional scars easily in a room full of strangers, after all - how, with a bit of coaxing on the parts of S & DioG, the raw ore of her personal struggles comes out poetically transformed into gripping and emotionally smart pop-punk gold. still it's a bit off-putting.

can talk/think about this more later, but now i'm going to go see jolie holland.

*that's bedbugs as in the knew knickname for the blogpal formerly known as pitchforkdave (and in fact still known as pfd on my bookmark bar) and/or bedbug
"p4k's arcade fire reviewer" diabetic dave "sugar shock" "no not that dave moore" moore...


EDIT: wanted to mention that i can't hear ashley parker angel, or at least "let U go" without thinking of (well, for the first three seconds, "just like heaven", but) sufjan stevens. specifically the chorus - it's "the predatory wasp of the palisades," the final section of it with "i-i-i can tell you." except apa doesn't do that part. plus maybe "i remember when/you came to me that night" makes me think of "he woke me up again" or something. well whatever. also, the "i don't wanna, but i gotta" part sounds like a weird al line to me.

October springs Eternal(or, "Hope Spring's Autumnal")

[at long last...anticipated and promised...the track list (and much more besides) for OiE, my crazy-goose birthday mix from three quarters ago. now that i've completed this mix's complement - which is either the '05 finger tape that covers the other end of my listening spectrum circa the time i was making this, and thus is bouncy where this is contemplative, or else popsical which is summery where this was fally (and wintry was wintery) - it's high time to go back and break it on down. here's how this is gonna get done ...]

Title: October is Eternal
Format: CD-R (80 min)
Date: October 2005; revised November 05 ["thanksgiving edition"] and April 06 ["continuous content"]
Packaging: manufactured plain white paper sleeve with clear plastic window on front; typewritten title, list of artists (not songs) and mix details on reverse. DJ Rec Rev logo on CD in black sharpie.
Notes: General purpose, mass distribution, continuous mix (made using Peak TDM 2.63)

Contents (with comments):

1. "Twenty Three" by Four Tet
i think i knew from the beginning that this was going to be the opener. this cd started out as a birthdaytime mix for me - the title (taken from an of montreal song that's not on this cd but just precedes the one that is) suggests to me that that warm, comfortable, glowy feeling of autumn [i think of the fading glows of summer sunburns and the growing glows of winter woodfires] can continue...forever...if we just hold on to it. that's the feeling i was trying to express with the music on this mix, and this piece captures it pretty perfectly, with its happy amble and jumble of friendly sounds.

it's a bit of a chestnut - one of the two standouts on Pause, an album i picked up largely on the basis the influential Amazon.com best of 2001 list. and chestnuts are autumnal too!

also i was turning 23 which made it particularly appropriate (not that i have any idea why it's called that.)

2. "The Stubborn Horse" by Mahjongg
a nice whinnying segue into a similarly loping groove with the burner turned up just a notch. this song feels like an instrumental even though it actually has a perfectly present and normal lead vocal part. i think is because the other components of the song - the various instrumental lines and even the periodic background vocals - feel equally important to its composition, each taking its turn as the focus. i don't like it when the opening songs on a mix assert too strong of an individual identity before the mix has a chance to present one of its own, which is why i opened this one with two songs that almost function as background music - it's as though by the cd has already been establishing an aural environment for a while by the time the listener is made to start paying attention.

my favorite part of this track is the chunky guitar that continues at the end after the other parts have dropped out. the clicks which lead into the next cut on the mahjongg album are conveniently exactly the right tempo to lead into the commanding opening drum fill of...

3. "How Am I Different" by Bettye LaVette
easily the most dynamic cut on the cd so far. the tastefully funky slow-burn of the previous two tracks is carried over here, but now it's all focused around bettye's hate-to-say-it-but-electrifying vocal performance. a wholesale reimagining of a song that, in its original incarnation - as the restrained opener of aimee mann's bachelor no. 2 - kept its venom politely concealed within convoluted lyrical insinuations and underplayed by mann's rather genteel delivery (so much so that her use of "fuck" feels forced, glossed-over, and almost uncomfortable.) here, bettye practically spits the venom in your face - conveying as much with her vicious, insistent vamping on the word "how" as aimee does in her entire mincing lyric - and detonates that f-bomb with a casual almost-grace. [j't'aime, aime', but babe...]

oh yeah - if this sort of interpersonal strife don't seem to flow with the falltime feeling, don't worry: this will all get sorted out soon, with a little help from our friends. but first...what's this!?

4. "Fallen Love" by Daedelus

a sudden plunge back into "fake-instrumental" territory. i love daedelus, and he's the best for mixtapes, even if you don't usually notice that he's there. come to think of it, despite the occasional crooning interjections ("do you think you might have fallen...in love..?"), there's quite a mess of sturm und drang in this track that allows it to follow up that last quite effectively.

5. "Measuring Cups" by Andrew Bird

sort of a mann-style nursery rhyme; sweetly caustic and just a sprinkle obscure. lovely little melody that latches on pretty quick. clever little mutter on conformity and censorship (of Gorey!) the last verse (same as the first) is too lazy to finish its lines.

6. "Peach Plum Pear" by Final Fantasy

not quite sure where this came from or why i had it, but it's a joanna newsom cover that's almost as endearing as her version, which is saying something. alyssa said she thinks this is what sufjan stevens is trying for and not quite achieving. (substituting pizz fiddle for harp or banjo?) if this is a plea for interpersonal connectedness, then it fits right in.

7. "High Doses #2" by the Mountain Goats

first rock song on the mix? this is from come, come to the sunset tree, the vinyl-only collection of lo-fi demos and excisions from the similarly titled album - which i'm still waiting like a fiend for my actual copy of, so thank god for small favors from well-placed friends with access to mp3 servers. this tune didn't make the final cut, and i'm wondering if it was just a little too nasty to fit with the ultimately - heartbreakingly - hopeful tenor of the album (fellow cast-off "collapsing stars" is also rather bleak.) 'cause this is nasty. gleefully so - "the great big world is out there", after all. but we're headed for catharsis.

8. "Matter into Energy" by Kelley Polar

adding this song is only the only change i made for the "continuous content" edition of the mix (that name trying its punningest to simultaneously sum up the theme of the mix and describe its method.) the earlier (and actually better-distributed) version had spoon's "i summon you" here - i swapped this in because i figured that tune would be well-enough exposed among emp types and others, but also because i wanted to spread my love for the polar album and it fit the mix's mood perfectly. wasn't expecting for it to be such a simple swap-in, but even though the two songs don't sound much alike at all, the transitions into and out of this were just as easy and possibly more satisfying for the extra layer of contrast they introduce.

this track is less kinetic than much of love songs of the hanging gardens, but it's absolutely romantic, meditative, and glowing. transmutes human relations into the celestial realm, without a whiff of pretension or forcedness.

9. "I Can't Let Go" by Evie Sands

just a great lil' slice of sixties soul-pop. there's something about those yearning, antiphonal chorus harmonies - over the held bass note - that feels almost modern. reminds me of the new pornographers (who showed up here on alyssa's original version, but got axed to make room, i guess.) baby! Baby! BABY! luv that harpsichord, too.

10. "Inside and Out" by Feist

i've been kind of kicking myself that i didn't save this for '05 finger disco (which, come to think of it, doesn't have any disco), but i'm glad more people got to hear it here. what a number! (a well done straight-up dance remix - not altering too much, just stressing the disco elements - that rubbery bass - would just slay.) does this make sense in the context of this cd? sure, i think it does. why not. i'm still trying to figure out where the bee-gees version of this is available. (anybody?)

11. "What's the Use" by Jamie Lidell
perfect, no-futzing-necessary segue! carrying right on with the blue-eyed funkyness. and here's where the soul-searching commences in earnest. what's the use of figuring it all out? well, fortunately, he answers his own question before asking it again: "life may sometimes be sad but it's always beautiful." not to put too fine a point on it, that could be the death-by-cheesy summing-up of this whole business.

(btw, if there's a video for this song, i really really hope it features an animated, person-sized question mark with jamie's crooning face, walking the streets and alleyways.)

12. "Push the Feelings" by Matthew Sweet
absolutely crucial. this song's the heart and core of this mix, and not-so-coincidentally smack dab in the middle of the tracklist. bettye, andrew, mr. goats (and a host, or maybe planet-ful, of slighted, defensive individuals): listen up! here's your anthem! "put those feelings in their place" - a total bleeding battle cry for emotional self-determinism - positivity by brute-force, in the face of rampant fuckwittery - a demand for, if compassion's too lofty, then at least non-intolerance. and it's lashed to a pounding, lunky rock march (this is actually the first rock song here, not that it needs that distinction) - sweet blunt power-pop power.

even so now way is this some blithe feel-good ditty - sometimes the lyric seems to flip-flop every half-line between egging you on and consoling you: "fuck the world around/don't let it confuse you/you're not heaven-bound/so god cannot abuse you" - even when it's not being maddeningly ambiguous - "this lousy human race don't deserve them/they don't deserve you"...wait, is "they" your feelings? is "you" you? wtf?

13. "Gemini (Birthday Song)" by Why?

because it's a birthday song, of course (or so the title claims.) this is impossible to do justice to with a description, but it's exactly the mood i was going for, and it's so beautiful and human, and also funny and completely bizarre. and so is the rest of elephant eyelash, which somehow seems like it could charm its way into anyoldbody's heart in spite of its extreme and willful eccentricity. and this - a surreal song-poem on love and mortality - is one of the best. so many precious lines. the "today i fell asleep in a bath of hair" verse is a gorgeous making-strange of a commonplace everynight scene, evening toilette and shared bedtime.

14. "Mean Old World" by Sam Cooke

this expresses some of the same emotional content as the why? song, but in plainer english and sweet out soul. it struck a strong chord the first time i heard it, scanning the man who invented soul box - and i still sing it all the time. it's another plea for human connection, that's all.

15. "I'd Like to See the Bad Guys Win" by Margo Guryan

so cute! i guess you could skew this as a loveblind compassion-for-all ditty, but i don't really think that's necessary. a little good-natured comedy; keeping a light touch amid this deep - if not necessarily heavy - content. this is from the 25 demos cd - apparently it was inspired by mae west, but her performance isn't really like that. that raggy rhodes-playing sounds so sweet.

16. "Too Happy" by Edith Frost

and i love how it skips straight into this one. the fourth piano number in a row. these comments are obviously getting shorter, but i don't feel like it's because i'm tired or bored - just that these songs - which are most central to the content of this mix - speak so well and simply for themselves. this song is from edith's first album, which i only got around to getting last year, and it crushes me just as much as when i first heard it. a recognition of the world's deficiencies, and hers, but: "i don't want to be bitter anymore." another sweet crystallization of the essence of my project, contentment and community.

17. "The World Is Showing Its Hand" by Jonathan Richman

jojo's a great man for showing us the world's cracked beauty, in a manner both worldly-wise and pure naïf. the innocence is preferenced here, of course, this being a recounting of earliest smell-memories: diesel exhaust, a piss-stained alley, "a mowed lawn, an ozon[e? i like to pretend he's talking about the director..].. anyway, you know the drill.

18. "Certain Songs" by The Hold Steady

more beauty in the dirt and sweat of everyday, more nostalgia, more ultramundane mundane shared experience - this time it's all to the greater glory of rock and roll. this is my favorite hold steady song hands down, and one of my favorite songs about music. i just want to quote all the lyrics, so i guess i won't. but "i guess you're old enough to know" could be a birthday sentiment too.

19. "Why? (What's Going On?)" by The Roots

it feels a little tokenistic to have this here, and i feel like i should feel particularly guilty about my token rap cut being the frickin' roots [they're sore thumbs on '05fd too], but then i also felt guilty - as a longtime fan - for not picking up the tipping point sooner, mostly based on lukewarm reviews. (also, who else would fit in with all this earnest songwriterness? and why? are at least a quarter hip-hop, rite?) anyway it's a great album - it shows them manouvering 'maturity' in a respectable but not boring fashion, it has a bunch of seriously hot beats, and i'm more inclined to listen to it than any of their other records save maybe things these days (granted, b/c it sounds/is more modern.) also i love the part where thought mispronounces "kylie minogue."

as for this cut, it's just a great funky mellow groove, capably bringing us back to the musical mood established earlier in the mix (after a minorly jarring rock interlude). the ridiculously simple hook is also ridiculously infectious, even though it's basically just an excuse to let the beat ride. (plus it hearkens back to the artist of the same name, as well as jamie lidell's more self-directed and wordier question.)

and, you know, here we're back to complaining about the world's ills, and more politically than anything else here (i guess the andrew bird comes close), and not in an especially interesting way, but it's still got that positivity thang. but there's definitely less clarity to that positive vision - which maybe does a good job of setting up the next song:

20. "Smells Like Content" by the Books

oh man do this band and i love each other. they're stealing my pun here, of course, er rather i stole theirs. this is a particularly swattie-friendly riff on most of the themes of this mix - delivered in a sort of pseudo-pseudo-jargo-babble that sounds like intellectual-sounding nonsense, until you pay more attention and realize that it actually does make sense, almost too easily - who would have thought the books would starting writing songs that are about things? it's okay guys, i won't tell anybody.

you can read the lyrics for yourself (the code: if a line doesn't make sense, it's not necessary to understanding what the song's about), but i'll just excerpt a little - "the world without end is a place where souls are combined/but with an overbearing feeling of disparity, disorderliness..." - so, exactly what i've been talking about: communal contentment is compromised by a tendency to focus on the negatives that leads to cynicism - and "to ignore it is impossible," but, faced with "a glut of possibilities, contingencies/with ever increasing faith, we decided to go ahead and just ignore them/despite tremendous pressure to capitulate and fade" - it just takes determination and a little faith to push past that and rediscover "a density reminiscent of the infinite connectivity of the center of the sun/and therein lies the garnered wisdom that has never died."

maybe i'm pushing this a little, but i think it's fair to say the books are fundamentally hopeful about humanity. anyway, none of this is necessary to enjoy this song, which creates (for me anyway) a powerful and curious emotional effect primarily through sonics, not rhetoric. it's really pretty. for the mix, i changed the ending by cutting off brother mikey's forest ramblings at a point that i think is apter and funnier. (see, i should be a book!)

21. "Kids" by MGMT
ho-kay. after all that silly overanalyticality, it's time for a dance party! this was the feel-good hit of the fall, no question. it fits the bill lyrically, fart jokes notwithstanding: "enjoy yourself/take only what you need from it" is as good a continous content slogan as any (brings to mind xtc's "do what you will but harm none.") and bonus points for the breakdown verse line about "sending me shivers," which recalls a party and series of mixes i made for myself (named after the mouse on mars track)

anyway, this is just a delicious song, as you'll all agree. weird that it's the only synthpop here, since that's all i breathe now. i saw this band when they opened for of montreal, and so it's only fitting that they're doing the same here.

22. "The Repudiated Immortals" by Of Montreal
a very pretty but slightly silly song, about, apparently, some fallen angels or otherwise sent-down immortal beings, who take it upon themselves to look after the humans with whom they now share a plane, after they (the humans) have been mocked and scorned by their creator. or something. that set-up doesn't really matter, because the crux is in the chorus, which echoes jamie lidell's ur-answer almost verbatim: "don't feel sad/cause it's a violent world/but there's still beauty." and then adds to it the community/human interconnectedness angle: "i'll take care of you if you take care of me." short, simple, beautiful.

23. "Waterslide" by Mice Parade

almost done. this feels like a slide back into the minimal background environment of the first two tracks, taken together with which this bookends the "content" of the mix nicely. bem-vinda vontade was one of my favorite records last year - completely unassuming and charming in a similar way to why? and four tet, an album of songs that fall somewhere between genres, recalling electronica and indie pop but most prominently featuring some very accomplished jazz-inflected instrumental work. in fact, this is another one of those fake instrumentals (even i always forget that it has words), and it just so happens that the words are apropos, offering another simple reminder to smile through your troubles, and not take it so hard: "the uphill ride is worth it all" i like how it ends with what sounds like the drummer's sticks clattering on the floor.

pccom

with a nod and wink to master herbert's "Personal Contract for the Composition of Music", here are some considerations to which i attempt to adhere in my mixmaking. (as well as some exceptions that disprove the rule. wasn't that adage always weird.)

(this is somewhat of a preamble both to the eventual manifesto of this website and to the mix deconstructions i will become forthwith posthaste.)

Perfectionistic Constraints for the Compilation Of Mixtapes

1. only one song per artist per mix.
for straightforward (probably?) balance-related aesthetic reasons. artists with multiple aliases make for sneaky but legitimate exceptions. might be okay to break this rule for mixes with narrow focus such as overviews of a specific genre.

2. try to use mostly or exclusively music which is unfamiliar to the intended audience/recipient of the mix.
because a large amount of the point is to introduce people to new music. (although music they may know but probably don't have access to is also cool.) of course, it's not possible to know for sure what somebody will or will not have heard, and it's not necessary to err on the side of obscurism. this is most pertinent for single-recipient, bespoke mixes (and it makes for a fun sort of guessing game/test of my awareness of my friends' music knowledge.) in the case of mass-distribution mixes, this is definitely more of a guideline than a constraint, since it won't be possible to satisfy completely.

3. a given song can only appear on one mix.
this is the stickiest constraint i make upon myself - the hardest to follow but maybe the one i feel most strongly about. there are several reasons for it: because it forces me to be creative in my use of my library, perhaps exploring for something newly exciting rather than recycling an old favorite; because it keeps the mixes more interesting for me as well as my [external] audience, since mixes are part of the way i process new music; because it is consistent with the way i sometimes view my mixes as comprising a cohesive and self-contained body of work, without overlaps; perhaps most pragmatically because, in keeping with constraint #2, i don't want to give somebody the same music twice, in case, for instance, they get a mass-distro mix that reuses something that was previously on a bespoke mix for them.

october is eternal has gone through several revisions partly in order to accord with this constraint: alyssa got a slightly different earlier version of that didn't include the songs that overlapped from genrecalia; the latest version excises 'i summon you' since i had intended to include it on a ghost of valentine's past; if i was really crazy i'd be tempted to revise it before i give tara a copy because the sam cooke track was on tarabundle. of course, all of this is in keeping with constraint #2, but it's not really in the spirit of #3, which is based on there being a finalized "ideal" version of any given mix (even if it's not the one that's distributed, or even if it's never made) which is the one that "counts" for the ouevre (which i'm presently discussing as though somebody else could be aware of it besides me.)

(i have decided, for instance, that "getting it made" by band of blacky ranchette should swap spots with st. etienne's "relocate", because the former actually belongs on ceremony, matrimony, alimony, rather than he said, she said, and vice versa for the latter. fortunately, or not, rebecca has both mixes. by the same token, i should definitely have included elvis costello's "our little angel" on bonus beats me! instead of "distorted angel" [which i overused before i had this rule])

i definitely violate this rule with some frequency, but i'm always (sometimes painfully) conscious of when i do. in a few instances i have used a bespoke mix as a basis or template for a later mass-distro mix (super mini ear for rabi was a structural precursor to such great heights: 2003 in pop; virtue-luau/stayed-gunny for rebecca was the source of some transitions that i later used in wintry mix - which i justified since i knew reb wouldn't be receiving a copy of wintry in sunny sri lanka.) in other cases i have specifically exempted some mixes from this rule - the chicks series for my mom for instance, and - for obvious reasons - plays favorites and plays second favorites.

05 finger disco reuses a couple of songs that were on martha's phonosyntheSIS, rae's coast to coast in the post, and angela's vulpine valentine - which is fairly reasonable since it's a round-up of my favorite songs from year; however i would prefer to adhere to the rule even in the case of best-of-annum mixes, and indeed i specifically try to save up songs that i know i'll want to include on them. (which is why "song for dennis brown" and "i turn my camera on", for example, haven't appeared on any other mix, and "sun shawa" wasn't on any other mix that counted.)


4. whenever possible, the first thing on the mix should be a song by four tet
a relatively recent addition to the list, since i realized how well it worked for the wintry mix. other successful examples: october is eternal, the vulpine valentine, '05 finger disco, and, back in the day, mark's lozenge of lounge. by rights, "sun drums and soil" ought to be the first track on the sunny-themed popsical - or even better, a hidden track before the cd starts - but it's not on the current version because (among other things) it's just too long. (kind of like this post!) do you know how tempted i am to buy the single on the off chance i'd want to include one of the remixes?


so. there are plenty of other considerations, such as ensuring a cohesive and enjoyable listening experience, minimizing stylistic imbalance (i.e. a single hip-hop track in the middle of a mellow folk set), and - very key - respecting the format of the mix; (tape vs. cd - which is a topic for another day), but nothing i would really call a "constraint." and, always, everything is subject to what seems like a good idea at the time.

i've now alluded to a potentially bewildering array of mixes past and present, some of which i will discuss in greater detail in upcoming posts. stay tuned!

midway park

so it's early july, the mid-point of '06, which means it's time for a look halfway back at the year so far and halfway forward towards december list-making season. last year's midpoint list (wow i saw so many more movies last year!) didn't really look all that different from the weirdo year-end version, which probably speaks less to the value of this as a prediction exercise than to the baziness of decembruary. actually i'm probably ready to make my best of '05 list about now - well, in fact, i did, in the form of '05 finger disco (which will get its own proper rundown here shortly.)

truthfully, the records that have most dramatically defined my 2006, in true headsmack-overlooked fashion, are as follows:

ashlee simpson, i am me (2005)
rachel stevens, come and get it (2005)
robyn, robyn (2005)
mylo, destroy rock and roll (2004)

anyway, looking over this year's crop...well, i'm a little underenthused, but heck, i'll hazard a numbered list:

1. james hunter, people gonna talk
2. the strokes, first impressions of earth
3. the veronicas, secret life of the veronicas
4. neko case, fox confessor brings the flood
5. belle and sebastian, the life pursuit
6. the knife, silent shout
7. cat power, the greatest
8. v/a, soul sides, vol. 1 (kind of a cheap inclusion)
9. howe gelb, 'sno angel like you
10. herbert, scale
11. v/a, wayfaring strangers: ladies from the canyon
12. candi staton, his hands
13. jose gonzalez, stay in the shade ep
14. tom ze, estudande o pagode
15. spank rock, yoyoyoyoyoyo
16. the coup, pick a bigger weapon
17. the dfa remixes, vol. 1
18. arctic monkeys, [yeah, really stinky title]

no or few cigars
elvis costello, my flame burns blue
gnarles barkley, st. elsewhere
beth orton, comfort of strangers

hard to place/more processing required
ellis hooks, godson of soul
windy and carl, the dream house/dedications to flea
camera obscura, let's get out of this country
destroyer, 's rubies
budos band (not sure if this is '06)

i'd like to hear
amy diamond, still me still now
daedelus, daedelus denies the day's demise
elvis costello and allen toussaint, a river in reverse
four tet, dj kicks (and late night tales?)
futureheads, news and tributes
lily allen, [title?]
juana molina, son
pink, i'm not dead
the pipettes, we are the pipettes
rihanna, a girl like me
scott walker, the drift

also, for some reason, a certain trigger by maximo park (i know it was last year.)

geez, it feels like there's got to be something else... i'm so happy with music this year, but this list seems alternately bizarre and boring. i'm kind of in a transitional phase of listenership (obviously).

not really sure what to do about indie rock these days. (i'm even more indifferent about hearing islands and tapes'n'tapes and band of horses and whoever than i was to wolf parade and clap your hands. remember when i used to be excited about the arcade fire?) poppy indie is still cool - b+s obviously rule ok, although i haven't found a straight-up twee pop album i've liked as much as aberfeldy's young forever (2004) since.

maybe i'll talk about singles sometime - when i'm done furiously done downloading all the ones mentioned here and here and here...

gabe just walked in and said i've been listening to pretty lame music lately. maybe so. (right now i'm listening to some of those singles - some of which do sound pretty lame. what the heck is this bwo business?) well, i'll figure it out sometime. maybe after the ashlee/ashley/v's show next week.