No, I'm serious. Can anyone out there lend me three million bucks? I'll pay you back, no problem.
There's something I need to buy.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Aubadecast 1.1
Well, after knocking myself out making mixed CDs all last year (which will, in a while, be archived on this site for those who feel they're missing out, or who have scratched theirs up, or something) I came to the conclusion that there must be a more efficient way of going about this whole business of sorting through and sharing music. Hence the first installment in an experimental series of podcasts. Each one is designed to be burned on an 80 minute CD and listened to like a regular mixtape, but there are no track breaks. This gets around the problem of you white-eyed devils who take my mixes, cram them track-by-track onto your iPods, and never hear them in their immaculately sequenced glory. Take that.
The first immaculately sequenced podcast is an only-ever-so-slightly-tweaked version of eighty minutes in the life of my iPod on shuffle.
This is what happened: during the course of getting the first Quarterly Report disc of 2008 ready (all the songs were in the playlist; I was winnowing the last 20 minutes of extraneous tunes out and assembling a sequence) iTunes crashed and lost my library file. All playlists: gone. "Last played" tracking back only to last September. In other words: royally hooped.
Gamely (I thought), once the weeping subsided I took this radical disorganization of my digital music collection as an opportunity to revisit some stuff I hadn't paid much attention to first time 'round. iPod: autofill randomly! Press play and...
The next two hours were spent with my hands in an electical panel (not live) and my ears on cloud nine. Tons of great stuff I hadn't given two thoughts about were laid out end to end like Dorothy Parker's girls at Brandeis in a pleasing and often surprising sequence.
Or maybe it's just me.
Download the inaugural Aubade podcast (via Megaupload; ignore the "girl of your dreams" ads, enter the code, wait 45 seconds, then cram the rawk into your hard-drive).
****
Track listing:
French Film Blurred Wire • Driver Surprise Me The National • War Pigs Cake • People Gonna Talk James Hunter • Billy Gillian Welch • Étienne D'août (version radio) Malajube • I'll Fly Away Goose Creek Symphony • All Over Again Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings • Hockey Monkey The Zambonis featuring James Kochalka Superstar • The Fool Neutral Milk Hotel • Dearest Forsaken Iron & Wine • Reservations Jeff Tweedy • The Youth Are Getting Restless Bad Brains • Stand Down Margaret English Beat • All The Old Showstoppers The New Pornographers • Lullabye Cracker • Up With People Oneida • Dark Star The Mabuses • Things Don't Change The Reivers • Get Ready To Ride The Lion Culture • Faraway You Marah
The first immaculately sequenced podcast is an only-ever-so-slightly-tweaked version of eighty minutes in the life of my iPod on shuffle.
This is what happened: during the course of getting the first Quarterly Report disc of 2008 ready (all the songs were in the playlist; I was winnowing the last 20 minutes of extraneous tunes out and assembling a sequence) iTunes crashed and lost my library file. All playlists: gone. "Last played" tracking back only to last September. In other words: royally hooped.
Gamely (I thought), once the weeping subsided I took this radical disorganization of my digital music collection as an opportunity to revisit some stuff I hadn't paid much attention to first time 'round. iPod: autofill randomly! Press play and...
The next two hours were spent with my hands in an electical panel (not live) and my ears on cloud nine. Tons of great stuff I hadn't given two thoughts about were laid out end to end like Dorothy Parker's girls at Brandeis in a pleasing and often surprising sequence.
Or maybe it's just me.
Download the inaugural Aubade podcast (via Megaupload; ignore the "girl of your dreams" ads, enter the code, wait 45 seconds, then cram the rawk into your hard-drive).
****
Track listing:
French Film Blurred Wire • Driver Surprise Me The National • War Pigs Cake • People Gonna Talk James Hunter • Billy Gillian Welch • Étienne D'août (version radio) Malajube • I'll Fly Away Goose Creek Symphony • All Over Again Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings • Hockey Monkey The Zambonis featuring James Kochalka Superstar • The Fool Neutral Milk Hotel • Dearest Forsaken Iron & Wine • Reservations Jeff Tweedy • The Youth Are Getting Restless Bad Brains • Stand Down Margaret English Beat • All The Old Showstoppers The New Pornographers • Lullabye Cracker • Up With People Oneida • Dark Star The Mabuses • Things Don't Change The Reivers • Get Ready To Ride The Lion Culture • Faraway You Marah
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Cramm'd full
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Return of the son of Aubade
While this blog is still officially closed for lack of interest, I ran across this recording of Spoon live on NPR's World Cafe that I thought might interest some of you.
Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is easily one of my favourite releases of 2007. An easy choice, I know; it was one of the year's most hyped albums. But it's a funky good record, dammit, nearly as good as Gimme Fiction and Kill the Moonlight, each of which is a shoo-in for my top ten of the decade so far. (What is it with male music geeks and top ten lists? Has some anthropologist done a study on this phenomenon? Is it cultural or pathological?) While at first listen it sounded too stark and teutonic, all hard lines and sharp angles, like a drawing done with a thick Jiffy marker, repeated listens reveal its hidden subtlety, soul, and even warmth.
Anyhow, here's the live set. Songs are broken out as individual MP3s, or you can download the whole show, interviews and all, as one file. The files are direct-linked.
Spoon on World Cafe [direct-linked MP3] [via RapidShare]
"Don't Make Me a Target" [via RapidShare]
"You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" [via RapidShare]
"Rhthm & Soul" [via RapidShare]
"I Summon You" [via RapidShare]
Spoon home emusic
Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is easily one of my favourite releases of 2007. An easy choice, I know; it was one of the year's most hyped albums. But it's a funky good record, dammit, nearly as good as Gimme Fiction and Kill the Moonlight, each of which is a shoo-in for my top ten of the decade so far. (What is it with male music geeks and top ten lists? Has some anthropologist done a study on this phenomenon? Is it cultural or pathological?) While at first listen it sounded too stark and teutonic, all hard lines and sharp angles, like a drawing done with a thick Jiffy marker, repeated listens reveal its hidden subtlety, soul, and even warmth.
Anyhow, here's the live set. Songs are broken out as individual MP3s, or you can download the whole show, interviews and all, as one file. The files are direct-linked.
Spoon on World Cafe [direct-linked MP3] [via RapidShare]
"Don't Make Me a Target" [via RapidShare]
"You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" [via RapidShare]
"Rhthm & Soul" [via RapidShare]
"I Summon You" [via RapidShare]
Spoon home emusic
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Good News
Hüsker Dü were, as I'm sure you astute little Aubadelings all know, one of the key bands of the 1980s, a herald of the "Alternative Revolution" of the 1990s (note the ironic quotation marks indicative of the era) (note also the self-conscious aside indicating that I'm aware that I am a product of my environment and that I somehow transcend the clichés even as I employ them) — where was I? Let's start again.
Hüsker Dü were, as I'm sure you astute little Aubadelings all know, one of the key bands of the 1980s, a herald of the "Alternative Revolution" of the 1990s and a strong influence on what came to be called "the Seattle Sound" — an admixture of sensitivity and brutality, pop and punk, art and commerce. They were the first "Alternative Rock" band to sign to a major label (though they never had anything like a hit — or even a decently produced album) and paved the way for hungrier bands with more testosterone to dominate radio airplay a few years after their breakup in 1988.
Drummer Grant Hart was Lennon to Bob Mould's McCartney, the latter writing all the songs your grandmother would like if she was kind of into hardcore, while Hart followed his drug-addled muse into oblique corners, sometimes bursting forth with a pop gem and sometimes wailing over a wall of noise.
While Bob Mould's solo output has received consistent attention from fans and critics, and his band Sugar nearly made waves on rock radio in the 1990s, Hart's career has been more haphazard; both solo and with Nova Mob, he has recorded with successively smaller and smaller record labels, nearly disappearing altogether in a kind of Alice in Wonderland trick. His last album was 1999's Good News for Modern Man. About 14 people noticed when it came out.
The thing is a fucking monster, easily one of my favourite albums of the past 10 years.
While searching for information on it (few and far between), I stumbled across this interview. Good reading.
How about a contest? First person to name the "three" that Hart refers to in the following song gets something nice.
•Grant Hart: Nobody Rides for Free (via RapidShare)
Grant Hart home
Hüsker Dü were, as I'm sure you astute little Aubadelings all know, one of the key bands of the 1980s, a herald of the "Alternative Revolution" of the 1990s and a strong influence on what came to be called "the Seattle Sound" — an admixture of sensitivity and brutality, pop and punk, art and commerce. They were the first "Alternative Rock" band to sign to a major label (though they never had anything like a hit — or even a decently produced album) and paved the way for hungrier bands with more testosterone to dominate radio airplay a few years after their breakup in 1988.
Drummer Grant Hart was Lennon to Bob Mould's McCartney, the latter writing all the songs your grandmother would like if she was kind of into hardcore, while Hart followed his drug-addled muse into oblique corners, sometimes bursting forth with a pop gem and sometimes wailing over a wall of noise.
While Bob Mould's solo output has received consistent attention from fans and critics, and his band Sugar nearly made waves on rock radio in the 1990s, Hart's career has been more haphazard; both solo and with Nova Mob, he has recorded with successively smaller and smaller record labels, nearly disappearing altogether in a kind of Alice in Wonderland trick. His last album was 1999's Good News for Modern Man. About 14 people noticed when it came out.
The thing is a fucking monster, easily one of my favourite albums of the past 10 years.
While searching for information on it (few and far between), I stumbled across this interview. Good reading.
How about a contest? First person to name the "three" that Hart refers to in the following song gets something nice.
•Grant Hart: Nobody Rides for Free (via RapidShare)
Grant Hart home
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Find: Yep Roc downloads
Besides being a very cool record label (hey, what else are you going to call Americans who dig Sloan?), the folks at Yep Roc are also very savvy when it comes to the world of internet promotion. They know that if they give you a little, you'll come back to buy more. So if you sign up at their website, they give you a "stash" — a bunch o' tracks, free as Willy!
Their roster includes the aforementioned Haligonians, plus Robyn Hitchcock, Jim Lauderdale, the sublime Go-Betweens, Robbie Fulks, Big Sandy, Marah, the Sadies ... the list goes on and on. Oh, and the new Nik Lowe will be out soon. *pant pant*
Then, when you buy records from them (right now they have a bunch of vinyl on sale for five bucks a pop!), they give you the digital version for free, too, and sometimes bonus tracks to go with it. Tres swell.
Tell 'em I sent you.
Their roster includes the aforementioned Haligonians, plus Robyn Hitchcock, Jim Lauderdale, the sublime Go-Betweens, Robbie Fulks, Big Sandy, Marah, the Sadies ... the list goes on and on. Oh, and the new Nik Lowe will be out soon. *pant pant*
Then, when you buy records from them (right now they have a bunch of vinyl on sale for five bucks a pop!), they give you the digital version for free, too, and sometimes bonus tracks to go with it. Tres swell.
Tell 'em I sent you.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
50th post: a protest moment
Nowadays they'd call this an incitement to terrorism.
•Barbara Dane and the Chambers Brothers: It Isn't Nice (via RapidShare)
Barbara Dane home eMusic
•Barbara Dane and the Chambers Brothers: It Isn't Nice (via RapidShare)
Barbara Dane home eMusic
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Notes from Banjo Underground
Here's a nice find: when Uncle Dave Macon died, he left a hole in the shape of John Hartford, which John Hartford nicely filled. When John Hartford died a few years ago, his hole was shaped like Chris "Old Man" Luedecke.
Old Man Luedecke's album Hinterland fills a void you might not have known existed – the need for you to own an album of solo singer-songwriter banjo tunes. Alternately tender and goofy, poignant and hilarious — and sometimes all that simultaneously — Luedecke's songs are surprisingly good. You're expecting novelty tunes, you get spicy rice and potatoes. These suckers are good for you, and tasty to boot. Dig it!
• Old Man Luedecke: I Quit My Job (via RapidShare)
• Old Man Luedecke: Joy of Cooking (via RapidShare)
Old Man Luedecke home radio 3 myspace
Hinterland available through eMusic's 25 free MP3 offer
Old Man Luedecke's album Hinterland fills a void you might not have known existed – the need for you to own an album of solo singer-songwriter banjo tunes. Alternately tender and goofy, poignant and hilarious — and sometimes all that simultaneously — Luedecke's songs are surprisingly good. You're expecting novelty tunes, you get spicy rice and potatoes. These suckers are good for you, and tasty to boot. Dig it!
• Old Man Luedecke: I Quit My Job (via RapidShare)
• Old Man Luedecke: Joy of Cooking (via RapidShare)
Old Man Luedecke home radio 3 myspace
Hinterland available through eMusic's 25 free MP3 offer
Monday, June 04, 2007
Feisty!
[from the online etymological dictionary]
Well!
There are those of us gushing about the new Feist album &tc. – and if Justin says so, I'll take his word that it's a fine piece of work (his fondness for the less-than-1/2-baked Broken Social Scene notwithstanding) – but when it comes to the artist in question, there are also those of us for whom the present-day rhinestone-spangled shimmy-dancer will never wholly displace images of wee Leslie Feist in cargo pants and dreadlocks, howling, growling, and belting her lungs out with Calgary grunge sensation Placebo*. Ah, to be young, white, and disease-free in 1995!
•Placebo: Spike (via RapidShare)
Leslie Feist home myspace
*not to be confused with the British band of the same name
feisty
1896, Amer.Eng. from feist "small dog," from fice, fist Amer.Eng. 1805 "small dog," short for fysting curre "stinking cur," attested from 1529, from M.E. fysten "break wind" (1440), related to O.E. fisting "stink."
The 1811 slang dictionary defines fice as "a small windy escape backwards, more obvious to the nose than ears; frequently by old ladies charged on their lap-dogs." Cf. also Dan. fise "to blow, to fart," and obs. Eng. askefise, lit. "fire-blower, ash-blower," from O.N., used in M.E. for a kind of bellows, but orig. "a term of reproach among northern nations for an unwarlike fellow who stayed at home in the chimney corner" [O.E.D.]
1896, Amer.Eng. from feist "small dog," from fice, fist Amer.Eng. 1805 "small dog," short for fysting curre "stinking cur," attested from 1529, from M.E. fysten "break wind" (1440), related to O.E. fisting "stink."
The 1811 slang dictionary defines fice as "a small windy escape backwards, more obvious to the nose than ears; frequently by old ladies charged on their lap-dogs." Cf. also Dan. fise "to blow, to fart," and obs. Eng. askefise, lit. "fire-blower, ash-blower," from O.N., used in M.E. for a kind of bellows, but orig. "a term of reproach among northern nations for an unwarlike fellow who stayed at home in the chimney corner" [O.E.D.]
Well!
There are those of us gushing about the new Feist album &tc. – and if Justin says so, I'll take his word that it's a fine piece of work (his fondness for the less-than-1/2-baked Broken Social Scene notwithstanding) – but when it comes to the artist in question, there are also those of us for whom the present-day rhinestone-spangled shimmy-dancer will never wholly displace images of wee Leslie Feist in cargo pants and dreadlocks, howling, growling, and belting her lungs out with Calgary grunge sensation Placebo*. Ah, to be young, white, and disease-free in 1995!
•Placebo: Spike (via RapidShare)
Leslie Feist home myspace
*not to be confused with the British band of the same name
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