new blog:

If you somehow managed to stumble upon this here blog, you probably have figured that it is inactive. That would be accurate. I've moved my blogging activities to kuddlykittenz.tumblr.com. The Tumblelog isn't going to be strictly music, which I think was one of the limitations that kept me from writing in here all the time.

Scored some sweet records:

on CD:

Yann Tiersen & Shannon Wright - s/t: Yann Tiersen did the music for "Amelie", and Shannon Wright is just awesome. It's spooky and ambient but still rocks out in spots.

The Mooney Suzuki - Electric Sweat: Garage rock isn't usually my bag, but I've been listening to the Sonics¹ a lot lately, and this CD was $4.00, so I figgered what the hell? Sure enough, it's pretty rockin'. From what I understand, the band teamed up with the folks behind Avril Lavigne's sonic drek, The Matrix, for their next record. Hrmph.

on cassette tape:

Quincy Jones - The Dude²: It's soooo 1981. James Inghram raps. Abe Laboriel channels Larry Graham. A Dave Koz clone rips out some gross alto sax solos. You can practically hear the lleyo being snorted off the mixing board. I like it.

3 Mustaphas 3 - Heart Of Uncle: I've been aware of these guys since about 1989 when I read a review of one of their records in Spin and it sounded really cool. I'm sad that I never actually procured a record until now. They take a kitchen sink approach, throwing in Middle Eastern, Baltic, and Carribbean bits together with vocals in French, Italian, and Hindi, and it comes out sounding pretty sweet.

Orleans - Waking And Dreaming²: You may recall that this album, which contained the 70s AM Gold hit "Still The One", also had one of the absolute worst album covers of all time*. Last night, Chris and I were listening to it, trying to imagine the band in the studio making this record, and not being able to figure how they could take what they were doing seriously. Dude sounds just like Peter Cetera. The music sounds like post-good Chicago. You can hear the cocaine on this album even more clearly than on The Dude. Definitely worth the $0.50 I paid for it.


(* PS: I will pay good American dollars for a copy of Devastatin' Dave's Zip Zap Rap.³)

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¹ A little over three years after I wrote this, I got to open for the Sonics at their first Seattle show in 35 years. Guess it's good that I listened to all that garage rock.
² I now also have both of these albums on vinyl. The warm, sweet, non-flutter-and-wow-y analog sound hasn't made the music suck any less.
³ This still holds true. Devastatin' Dave is my hero.

(Originally posted 07/20/2005)

Some critically acclaimed and wildly popular bands...

...that I pretty much never, ever feel the urge to listen to, in no particular order:

Built To Spill: I enjoyed their first album (Ultimate Alternative Waivers). I don't hate hearing them. But I am not engaged by them, even a little bit. I saw them live years ago, and my favorite part of their set was their cover of fucking "Freebird". 

Beck: I think I like what Beck does conceptually, but his music always sounded too slick to me  even though it was presented as this anything-goes thing. I still want to check out Sea Change so I can hear dude try his hand at doing Gainsbourg. Also, Scientology is retarded. (I was heartbroken to find out that Isaac Hayes was one of them.)

The Flaming Lips: Maybe this group has suffered from overexposure. I don't need to hear The Soft Bulletin ever again, because for a about two years, I couldn't spend more than an hour or so in a bar without it coming on. (An exaggeration, duh, but you know.) Regardless, "Race For the Prize" is still the jam. Since I originally wrote this post, I heard them do a tune from their newest record on some late night talk show, and it sounded pretty cool. That said, that was a month or so ago, and I haven't rushed out to pick up the new LP. Or download the track, for that matter.

REM: I liked these dudes as a kid, circa Green. By the time Monster came out, I could barely stand to listen to them. They became a Big Music Making Machine, just like U2, and I didn't really care about anything they had to say. Remind me to tell you my weird meeting with Michael Stipe story sometime.

Nirvana: I still like to listen to Bleach every once in a while. Nevermind Nevermind. Again, this band suffered from crazy overexposure. In the 90s, when the grunge thing was happening, I liked Nirvana a lot, but I was way more into Alice In Chains and Soundgarden. Ultramega OK still totally fucking rules! Remind me to tell you my weird meeting with Krist Novoselic story sometime.

X: I've never been able to pin down quite what it is about this band I don't care for. My first thought is that it's the vocals, but then I think maybe it's because the songs sound indistinguishable from each other to me. I saw them at SXSW a few years ago, and while their performance was good, it did nothing to make me want to listen to them more.

Johnny Cash & Willie Nelson: I totally appreciate the cultural import of both of these guys. But man, I'd be totally ok not hearing either of their songs ever again. 

I don't hate any of the acts I've listed. None of them make me feel physically ill or agitated upon hearing them (see: Celine Dion, Nickelback, Creed). I just never go, "Hey! I really want to hear Live at San Quentin!" or "Man, isn't Odelay a rad record? Let's listen to it again!" There are records that I do that with.

(Originally posted 06/14/07, revised 12/29/09)

I am the laziest blogger on the planet. In an attempt to kick-start this shit, I'm going to populate this here blog with content that I've written in other forums/blogs/whatever, and then hopefully start adding newer content.

Sagittarians are notorious for getting excited about an idea, starting it, and then getting bored with it and moving on to something else. Some people call this ADD. I call it cosmic, maaaaaan.

Miss me?

Not likely, since I don't think anyone ever read this blog in the first place. I'm going to make another attempt at this blogging thing. (Ew. 'Blogging'. Not fond of the word at all. It's like the 'panties' of web terminology.)

Look forward to more music reviews, music musings, and moderately entertaining bullshit.

MyCrack attack:

I've been adding a bunch of bands on mycrack today because I'm A) not interested in listening to anything I have on hand, and B) am horribly out of touch.

I just now got around to listening to Red Sparowes, a band that Wardell recommended to me forever ago. It's like the music of Explosions In The Sky as played by the Cure, with little bits of GYBE! thrown in just for kicks. (I just noticed a little guitar part toward the end of the song "A Message of Avarice Rained" that sounds a bit like the outro to a Quicksand song...)

Also, Sparowes tourmates Russian Circles sound pretty killer. I'm sure they're sick of being called math rock, but if it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and is a two-piece instrumental band that plays in odd meter like a duck, then...well, you know.

Another band who's name I've heard but ignored is Tilly and the Wall. I want to hate this band. I think I might hate this band. But I have a feeling that it's going to turn out like El Perro Del Mar turned out - it'll be too cute for me to stand, and make me angry and all Hulksmashy (because that's what twee does to me), but then I'll listen to it more and think it's the greatest thing since Tiny Tim.

Murder By Death: Nick by Cave. Bet they're sick of that too. In any case, it's pretty rockin' country Gothic (no, not like Fields of the Nephilim).

One last one: General Surgery. It's death metal. Or goregrind. All these fucking subgenres of metal confuse the shit out of me. And if you get any of these bands confused and put them in the wrong subgenre, they're liable to sacrifice you to Odin and then eat your liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti. Anyway - General Surgery plays what I think is death metal, with the vocals pitched down an octave so it sounds like the sound your guts make after eating at Taco Bell. It's pretty sweet.

The slack attack continues...

My laptop is still busted, and my secret wellspring of new music dried up. So for now I will tell you about my current musical excursions:

American School of Warsaw: has been on hiatus for a couple of months. We will start rehearsing again soon, and will be recording an EP in April at Jupiter Studios with Jon Ervie. Plan on hearing some new sounds out of this old dog. (ASOWs first show was just over six years ago. Can you beleive it? Yes? Well, ok then.)

Key Note Speaker: is doing preproduction for a new record. We've been playing as a three piece as of late, occasionally augmented by our pal Leif Dalan on the keys. We hope to enter the studio (probably with Endino again) in late spring or summer.

Kate Tucker & The Sons of Sweden: have brought me on board as their touring bassist. BJ Meyers, who normally provides low end for the Swedes, has other comitments that prevent him from going on the road, so that's where I come in. We'll be playing a showcase at this year's SXSW in Austin, and I may be joining them for some gigs in New York in May.

Mi amiga Clarita and I also have started a group. We made our debut a few weeks ago at a birthday party for a dog. We haven't settled on a name yet, and are probably going to need a real singer, as I was told that I sing like a Muppet.

I haven't forgotten you, Detritus.

No, in fact you keep staring me in the face, seeming to say "don't you love me anymore?" Of course I do.

My laptop is still busted (mostly due to my own laziness). I've been on vacation, and now it's the holidays and shit. I promise to get back in the saddle again. For reals.

Hilly Krystal, dead at 75

R.I.P. Hilly Krystal

Hipster Olympics

This is beyond awesome, and it's applicable to places besides Williamsburg.



(thanks to Ingo for this)

----------------
Now playing: Rachel's - Tea Merchants
via FoxyTunes

new Rilo Kiley

Looks like Jenny Lewis, et al. went and wrote a disco record. I'm only about halfway through it and so far it's my favorite thing of theirs I've heard. I can't tell how much influence Warner money has had yet - the title track is a little glossy sounding, and there are shades of...Fleetwood Mac, mabe? But still! It's got a funky beat, and I can dance to it.

I'm hearing some vocal harmonies that are a bit reminiscent of the Watson Twins' contribution to Jenny Lewis' terrific solo record, but outside of that, this is a very different beast.

"The Moneymaker" is the first single, but you'll probably be able to steal that from somewhere else on the internests, so take this one instead:

Rilo Kiley - "Close Call" [5.2mb]

edit: watch the video for "The Moneymaker". It's got porn starlets in it.

covers

I've spent the better part of the last two days listening to Regina Spektor's cover of Madonna's clunker of a single "Love Profusion". Now, I love love love Regina, and I am ambivalent, if not downright hostile, toward Madonna. But I've found that there are several instances of artists making something more out of the source material at hand.

Sure, it's all subjective and crap, but sometimes these covers have led me to explore the original group's catalog. Sometimes I end up getting into the original artist, and sometimes not.

Cases in point:

• Joel RL Phelps - most of the Inland Empires EP (featuring songs by Iris DeMent, Townes Van Zandt, the Go-Betweens, others). I love this record. I bought Iris DeMent's My Life because of it, and did not like it one bit. I think it was the production moreso than the songs themselves that I didn't care for, but still - I sold the CD. Same goes for the Go-Betweens. I'd actually given them a shot a few years before the Phelps disc came out at the behest of both a girl I was dating, and Tim Cook. I was, and am still, distinctly meh about them.
• Silkworm - "The Chain" (Fleetwood Mac). I remember hating Fleetwood Mac as a kid. I thought their music was pure schlock (except for "Tusk" with all the marching band shit going on). But after listening to SKWM's version about a hundred times, I decided I at least liked the original.
• Shannon Wright - "I Started A Joke" (Bee Gees). I first heard this when I worked for KCMU/KEXP. I got a copy of Shannon's Perishable Goods EP for review, and having already been a fan, I pushed to get this some airplay. Sometime after this came out, I asked her after a show if she knew where I could get a copy for myself. (Before you ask: I didn't have a computer back then, so I couldn't just burn it.) She basically said "Good luck." About the Bee Gees? I own the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack on vinyl.
• Bauhaus - "Ziggy Stardust" (David Bowie). I've never had a problem with Bowie. I like Bowie. I just happen to like Bauhaus' take on "Ziggy" more than Bowie's.

Those are just a couple of examples. Hip-hop led me to soul, funk, and R&B, and covers lead me to...Fleetwood Mac. Or even Madonna.

The performance this track is culled from took place at the 2005 New York Jewish Music festival. It was kind of a tongue-in-cheek song selection, considering Madge's questionable Jewishness. Regina totally makes this song her own though, and I will keep enjoying it, despite myself.

Regina Spektor - "Love Profusion" (live at the 2005 New York Jewish Festival) [7.1mb]

Cake Like

Kerri Kenney (from Cake Like/The State/Reno 911)'s dad was the voice of Lion-O from Thundercats. Who knew?

Cake Like was a great, totally underappreciated band. Their first album, Delicious, was put out by John Zorn's Japanese affiliate Avant. It's not as strong as their sophomore disc Bruiser Queen, which is the first of their recordings I purchased. It's also one of the first releases from Neil Young's Vapor imprint, as well as one of the first HDCD-format compact discs*. I saw them on the Conan O'Brien show and was blown away by their combination of weirdness and pop sensibility. Kenney's flat vocal delivery and their rudimentary playing could have made for a boring listening experience in clumsier hands, but their sense of humor and clever songwriting made Bruiser Queen one of my favorite records of the late 90s.

Their third disc, Goodbye, So What, wasn't quite as good as Bruiser Queen, but still had some rockers on it - namely "Dead To Me", which lyrics supply the title of the album, and became a mixtape favorite of mine.

Below is the video for their "hit" (perhaps only) single, "Lorraine's Car" from Bruiser Queen.




*don't ask me why I remember shit like this. I can't help it. It's part of the reason I have a music blog.

Max Roach

R.I.P. Max Roach

The importance of cover art:

In this age of digital downloading, I believe that the disconnect between music and packaging is becoming even greater than when die-hard vinyl purists decried the reduced real estate of a CD jacket. At least CD packaging allowed for some art, some sort of visual to go along with the audio. For me, the packaging is a huge part of the whole presentation of an album.

Here are the covers of five of my all-time favorite records. See if you notice anything similar about them:


Crescent EP
Unwound New Plastic Ideas
Six Finger Satellite - Severe Exposure
Silkworm - Libertine
Boxhead Ensemble - Dutch Harbor: Where The Sea Breaks Its Back

Something hit me recently. The covers to at least five of the records that I've listened to hundreds and hundreds of times are all black & white. Save for a little yellow here, a bit of red there, and Severe Exposure's black-on-silver motif, they're black & white. (My personal copy of Severe Exposure is an advance release version with - you guessed it - a black & white cover).

I love the music on these albums dearly. I love how they sound, and how they were recorded (which would probably be considered 'dirty' or 'lo-fi' by a lot of engineers). The music on these records is largely dissimilar - Crescent is all drones and unintelligble vocals. Unwound (on this record at least) trades in abrasive post-punk and full-on stoner jams. I refer to 6FS as "cocaine rock", all ugly 80s synths and sleaze. Silkworm's Libertine (which was recorded by Steve Albini) sounds massive and airy, whilst being angular and jagged in spots, and achingly pretty in others. And the Boxhead Ensemble record is the mostly improvised and entirely haunting soundtrack to Braden King's eponymous documentary, which deals with life in the fishing community of Dutch Harbor, AK (a bleak place by most accounts).

I realized that these records sound like they're in black & white to me. Not to say that they sound monochromatic. It's more of a noir feel. Despite the differences in the music, there seems to be a common thread throughout. Possibly it's the way the guitars sound, or the sense of melancholy, and the preponderance of minor key tonality.

There are typographic and graphic similarities as well - what I've always thought of as a "1960s encyclopedia" look, for lack of a better description. The cover art for these albums have been nearly as big an influence on me as the music contained therein.

We're moving back into a singles-driven market. In the olde days, 45s usually came in paper sleeves with the record company's logo on it. There were no pictures of the band, no information about the players anywhere. Then the LP came along, and the listener obtained a new way to connect with the people who made the music they loved. This is going by the wayside again. Of all of the mp3s I've downloaded off the internet, I know so little about so many of the bands. I don't know what they look like, or who the band members are, or where they recorded the music, who produced it, even what label it came out on. These things may not be important to a lot of music listeners, but for me, it helps create a richer, and more important experience.

dead prez:

I cannot believe I slept on this group for so long. I'd been aware of them since Let's Get Free was released in 2000, but it's only been since my interest in hip-hop was renewed that I checked them out. As far as I'm concerned, Let's Get Free is the finest political hip-hop record since Fear Of A Black Planet. It manages to be menacing and funky as hell all at the same time.

Dead Prez's appearance in Dave Chappelle's Block Party is one of the highlights of the film. The mood is electric, energy practically arcing between the MCs, the band, and the crowd.

You should watch it:

I've been a bad blogger.

Well, actually, I've been busy as shit lately. More stuff to come soon, promise.

Led Zep vs. EW&F:

I noticed a striking similarity between the vocal melodies of these two songs -

Led Zeppelin - "Stairway To Heaven" (1971)
There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
And when she gets there she knows if the stores are closed
With a word she can get what she came for

and

Earth, Wind, & Fire - "Fantasy" (1977)
Every man has a place, in his heart theres a space,
And the world cant erase his fantasies
Take a ride in the sky, on our ship fantasii
All your dreams will come true, right away

Someone needs to do a mashup of this, pronto.

Led Zeppelin - "Stairway To Heaven" (.wma) [10.27 mb]

EW&F - "Fantasy" (.mp3) [8.8 mb]

Explosions In The Sky:

An ex-girlfriend hipped me to Explosions In The Sky a couple of years ago. I like moody, epic rock songs (i.e. Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Do Make Say Think, and especially Mogwai), and these dudes fit the bill.

I was surprised when I found out that they'd done the soundtrack to Friday Night Lights. I don't typically associate epic instrumental rock songs with high school football. I finally got around to watching the movie last night, and ya know what? It works. Their music has been carried over into the TV series on NBC, which is actually pretty good as well. Plus it gives me a bit of a football fix until the NFL season starts again.

I've been geeking out on the longer of the two versions of "Your Hand In Mine" that appear on the soundtrack. (The original, 8-minute long version is from their 2003 album The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place.) Something about the chord progressions they use in this song just get me. I can't put it any better way than that.

I'm also putting up "The Moon Is Down" from 2001 release Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever, which is the first song of their's I ever heard.

FYI: big files, as is demanded by epic songs.

Explosions In The Sky - Your Hand In Mine (with strings) [6.73 mb]

Explosions In The Sky - The Moon Is Down [14.52 mb]

worthless goddamn cripple:

Ever wonder what happened to Dave Riley (the bass player from Big Black)? No? Well, I did, ever since I first read an article about said band in Spin about a million years ago. The article stated that his whereabouts were unknown, and that he had likely overdosed.

Turns out he'd had a stroke. He's alive, and is blogging about it.