Song of the Day Has Moved

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2006-02-03T02:09:00.000-08:00

We Love You-The Rolling Stones

2006-01-18T23:08:00.000-08:00

Under cover of thanking their fans for supporting them after a 1967 drug bust, Mick and Keith basically give the world a kiss off dressed with psychedelic sounding vocals, backed by John and Paul, dressed in mellotron. At it's dark, stinky heart, however, there are some of the best oooooohs-oooooohs, stompy piano and what the druggy stench only superficially cloaks, that is the most punk song possible from a bunch of flower power slumming sleazoid millionaires. Possibly their most unheard and least listened to genius moment this side of "Monkey Man".

I Will Dare-The Replacements

2006-01-17T23:57:00.000-08:00

I will dare you to come up with a better song that evokes that feeling that you feel- the feeling of love/lust/possibilities that you only feel when you have a glimmer of hope. And it has to clock in under 3:20. I submit it is not possible. The flip side of this song, for the feeling when it all goes bad down the road would be The Buzzcocks "Ever Fallen in Love". These two together cover both sides of the line.

What A Shame-Kingsbury Manx

2006-01-16T21:04:00.000-08:00

Continuing my occasional and inconsistent series of SoftD based on the top CDs of 2005, I offer this week a single from the Kingsbury Manx, a perennial 3 Bulls favourite. What A Shame is just one particularly memorable and mellow track from The Fast Rise And Fall Of The South, a stellar and massively massively massively underrated album. I don't know if it really qualifies generally as the best of 2005, but it is right up there.

The Kingsbury Manx are kind of hard to pigeonhole. They are soft-spoken, yet occasionally rock out. They play folky music, yet sophisticated and modern sounding. Generally, the songs are downtempo, the guitar work is nuanced and picked, the keyboards are frequently set on organ mode, the drumming is delicate, and the singing is lush and sweet. I can't think of any bands that really sound enough like them to give a useful framework, but some of their songs evoke feelings like those stimulated by artists like The Clientele, Iron and Wine, Radar Brothers, Yo La Tengo, Skygreen Leopards, and Mojave 3.

What A Shame begins in a gentle 6/8 tempo with piano and drums. It's slow dance music people. The kind of song that you generally gaze into your lover's eyes and think about when and how long you are going to kiss them once the song is over. I think what draws me to the song more than the sweet lyrical and lulling melody are the lyrics. It sounds like it is a love song but, in typical Kingsbury Manx fashion, is filled with irony and surprise. Between versus is just a lovely trumpet solo. I love trumpet solos in pop songs; it's always drawn me to groups like Beulah. As each verse continues, the intensity of the voice is just a little louder and slightly more hostile. The slow simmering of a break-up, I suppose. The other distinct feature of the lyrics is that it is read like a novel - an effect I like and one that should be copycatted immediately. Lyrics are below:

A bliss so underrated to me
'oh what a shame' said she
'cause this is what lives
are supposed to be'

A kiss so underrated to me
'come closer' said she
'cause this is what close
is supposed to be'

'I feel so sedated' said she
'some illusion' said me
'cause this is what lives
are supposed to be'

'I feel so sedated' said me
'like I told you' said she
'it's not what lives
are supposed to be'

Remeber Me Well - House of Freaks

2006-01-10T22:35:00.000-08:00

This one's a little long, but bear with me. Not too many people have heard of this band, but they formed in Richmond, VA in the mid '80s, and released four full lengths and an EP before they were through. The band consisted of just two guys, Bryan Harvey on guitar and vocals, and Johnny Hott on drums. They were signed by Rhino records after an A&R guy saw them live and couldn't believe the sound created by just two guys. They later formed the blues/rock band Gutterball with Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate and Stephen McCarthy of the Long Ryders. Gutterball released two albums. They were friends with fellow Richmond natives Dancing Hoods, which included a young Mark Linkous, who would later create Sparklehorse.

On New Year's Day, Bryan Harvey and his wife and two daughters, aged 9 and 4, were brutally murdered and left in the basement of their home near Richmond. They were discovered by Johnny Hott, who had gone to their home for a New Year's cook-out. The supsects have been taken into custody, and it would appear that this was a random robbery/murder.

[I saw this story and had no idea about the back story, thank goodness they caught the guys- Pinko]

House of Freaks was a band that I first got into because when I was young and impressionable, my brother used to play their debut album, Monkey on a Chain Gang. This was probably 1986 or 1987 when I was in about sixth or seventh grade. As a result, they've always sort of held a special place for me. This was right when I was starting to discover music that wasn't played on mainstream radio for the first time, and to this day, they're still one of my favorite bands.

I was going to write about the song "White Folks Blood" which appears on their second album, Tantilla. It's probably my favorite HOF song. It's a song, like many of their songs, about the south and its connection to pre-Civil War Southern traditions, including slavery:

~Dusting off their fathers' guns
Words like worms crawl through their brains
Sermons fly from a preacher's mouth
But the auction block still remains
Gagged and tied to a tree trunk
After a fox hunt chase with dogs and chains
In a field of white in the broad daylight
The earth was black, black with blood~

But ultimately I chose "Remember Me Well". It's the last track off of their third full length Cakewalk, which is probably their most professional sounding album, and least commercial of their first three. It's more or less a spiritual that begins with Harvey strumming his acoustic and singing the first two verses more or less alone. After a brief interlude, the drums and some backing wind instruments kick in quietly. A clarinet solo separates the fourth verse from the fifth, which kicks up the volume as the full backing complement joins in. It's the type of song you'd expect to hear somwhere in old New Orleans. But mostly, it encourages us to do what Harvey asked, and remember him well.

~In a hundred years hence
With the worms I will dwell

When I'm gone from this world
Please remember me well

You can dance on my grave
You can ring out the bells
After all's said and done
Just remember me well~

House of Freaks are more than just a band that I listened to. They're a link to my youth and to my family and friends of that period. The senseless murder of Harvey and his family has taken a small part of that away. We'll always have his music, though I suppose that's small comfort to his family and friends. May Harvey, his wife, and their daughters rest in peace.

A little more over at my place.

Interruptions-Rogue Wave

2006-01-10T00:18:00.000-08:00

Reservations regarding the fact that the name impresario behind Rogue Wave is named Zach Rogue or something like that notwithstanding- hello Slaughter, hello Winger, hello Accept? This little gemmo is a B-side to the first single, 10:1 from these San Fran? lush indie popsters. His voice can have at times a distant, soft edge, hard to explain, but Steven Mason (Beta Band) can do the same thing. The song comes off like a pillowy stomp, and is 90% excellent, hits some run-of-the-mill moments into and through the chorus. Of course the outro is just stunning. Has some perfectly shimmery bits. The A-side is pretty good too, and completely different. I heard Interruptions first, so I was forced to get the single instead of the album. I believe Fulsome bought this album at porkfest. Hopefully he'll clue us in in comments.

Losing Haringey-The Clientele

2006-01-09T22:48:00.000-08:00

The Clientele's latest opus, Strange Geometry, is possibly the best CD of 2005, or at least amongst the top 5. PP and I have already gushed endlessly over its crowning jewel, Since K Got Over Me, but there are plenty of other gems in this album.

Losing Haringey grabs you instantly as you realize that this is hardly a song, but a story. The narrative is told in speaking voice over a beautiful Clientele soundscape, punctuated periodically with a wordless la-la chorus. The background music alone is phenomenal, but the star of this song is the story. I can't think of many other bands that have done the combination of speaking and music quite so well, and when I do think of them, they're usually terrific tracks. The Clientele might be onto a great trend - I would love to listen to more songs arranged like this. The freedom from a lyrical chorus and the greater volume of words makes this a very appealing forum for new prose.

The full lyric is included below. It tells of a poor young man wandering the streets until he find himself sitting on a bench where he realizes that he is sitting in a family photograph from 1982. The details recalled and the feelings that are evoked are quite powerful. The way the narrative is told and the background music synergize to create a very thick feeling of sadness and nostalgia - typical of stories of innocence lost. It's impossible not to remember that same feeling of 1982-ness along with the song and the same sadness of those days being gone. [ED- lyrics more accurate now]

Those days there was a kind of feeling of pushing out of the front door, into the pale exhaust fume park by broad water pond where the grubby road eventually leads to ENfield. Turkish supermarkets after chicken restaurants after spare part shop, everything in my life felt like it was coming to a mysterious close.
I could hardly walk to the end of the street without feeling there was no way to go except back. The dates I had that summer HAD COME to nothing, my job was a dead end and the rENT check was killing me a little more each month. It seemed unlikely that anything could hold much longer. The only question left to ask was what would happen after everything familiar collapsed, but for now the sun was stretched between me and that moment. It was ferociously hot and the ~~equality~~ air quality became so bad that by the evening the noise of nearby trains stuttered in ~~and fix and storks~~in fits and starts, distorted through the shifting end. As I lay in my room I can hear my neighbors discussing the World ~~kemp~~Cup and opening beers in their gardens on the other side someone was singing an Arabic prayer through the thin wall I had no money for the pub so I decided to go for a walk. I found myself wandering aimlessly to the west past the terrace of chicken and ~~bomb~~kebab shops and ~~long dreads~~laundrettes near the tube station. I crossed the street and headed into virgin territory, I had never been this way before grabble Dutch houses alternative with square 60s offices and the white pavements UNDulated with cracks and litter. I walked in wall because there was nothing else for me to do and by the breeze the light began to fade. The mouth of an avenue led me to the verge of a long greasy A road that rose up in the far distance with symmetrical terraces falling steeply down and up again from a distant railway station. There were 4 benches to my right intersperced with those strange bushes that grow in the area. These blossoms are so pale yellow they seem translucent almost spectral and suddenly tired, I sat down. I held my head in my hands, feeling like shit but a sudden breeze escaped from the terraces and for a moment I lost my thoughts and its unexpected glooms. I looked up and I realized I was sitting in a photograph. I remember clearly this photograph was taken by my mother in 1982 outside our front garden in Hampshire, it was slightly underexposed I was still sitting in the bench but the colors and the plains of the road and the horizon had become the photo but I looked hard and I could see the lines of the window ledge in the original photograph were now composed by a tree branch and the silhouetted edge of a grass birge??, the sheens the flash on the window was replicated by gunfire smoke drifting infinitessimally slowly from behind the fence my sisters face had been dimly visible behind the window and yes there were pale stars far off to the west that traced out the lines of a toddlers eyes and mouth. When I look back at this there's nothing to grasp, no starting point, I was inside an underexposed photo from 1982 but I was also sitting on a bench in Haringey, strangest of all was the feeling of 1982, dizzy illogical as if none of the intervening disasters and wrong turns had happened yet. I felt guilty and inconsolably sad. I felt the instinctive tug back, to school; the memory of shopping malls, cooking, driving in my mothers car, all gone, gone forever. I just sat there for awhile, I was so tired that I didn't bother trying to work out what was going on. I was happy just to sit in the photo while it was lasted which wasn't long anyway. The light faded, the wind caught the smoke, the stars dimmed under the glare of the streetlamps. I got up and walked away from the squat little benches and an oncoming gang of kids. A bus was rumbling to my rescue down that hill with a great big fire Alexandra palace on its front and I realized I did want a drink after all

Heard Somebody Say-Devendra Banhart

2006-01-03T22:54:00.000-08:00

I don't know if we are still doing dedication 'week', but I suppose that if this song were to be appropriately dedicated to anybody, it would be to John Lennon, whose anniversary of his death was widely thought of last month. Devendra Banhart has the kind of voice that tends to annoy people that concern themselves with the qualities and affectations of singing. He has a very prominent and high-frequency vibrato that creates both distinctiveness and a kind of aged quality to his folky poppy music.

Cripple Crow is really a Beatles tribute album at its heart. This is obvious from the Sergeant Pepper-esque cover art and the assorted psychedelia associated with the art and music. It is fitting then that many of the songs have a certain Beatles quality associated with them, somewhat of a departure from the more minimalist and quiet but very excellent Rejoicing In The Hands.

Heard Somebody Say is probably not the centrepiece of this broad and vast CD, but it is my favourite track, simply because of its exceptional mimicry of John Lennon's best song, Across The Universe. The track begins with a simple series of piano chords before being joined by the standard Beatles set of instruments. The lyrics kind of line up like the following:

Across the Universe

Words are flying out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting thorough my open mind
Possessing and caressing me

Heard Somebody Say

I heard somebody say
that the war ended today
but everybody knows its goin' still
om mother lands and mother seas
here's what we believe
its simple
we don't wanna kill 


The chorus isn't too different either.  Instead of Jai Guru Deva Om there is simply a beautiful hymnal
series of ooohhhs and ummms and Nothing's Gonna Change My World is simply replaced by We don't
wanna kill.  Kind of an appropriate sentiment.

There is one more additonal Beatle-y surprise near the end of the song, which is an approximately one
minute instrumental that sounds like it was lifted out of parts of Magical Mystery Tour.  I'm always going
to be a sucker for music that sounds like the Beatles, and this is one of the finest I've heard in a very long
time.  Not all the songs on Cripple Crow are quite this good, but it easily places among my top 20 CDs for
last year.

Making Flippy Floppy-Talking Heads

2005-12-24T00:34:00.000-08:00

I'm not one to throw around racial terms with music, because how could Talking Heads fit in any of those boxes? Almost irredeemably nerdburger, (look at them) yet absolutely effortlessly funky, never more so than on Speaking in Tongues, whence this gem comes. With this one sandwiched between "Burning Down the House" and "Girlfriend is Better", side whatever of Speaking in Tongues played on vinyl sounds just warm enough to be live, and who knows maybe the tracks were recorded that way. Amidst that actual live sound, a sound that on the surface simplifies the music, an almost mathematical complexity bubbles underneath. It's as if the genius kids at the ol' School Of Rock were given a funk-by-numbers take home test and they warped it into this slab of genius. I picture three dudes in comically large yellow hazmat suits complete with 2001 helmets strutting in formation down that street in NYC where the Warriors met up with the Orphans (ed.- The chicks are packed! The chicks are packed! other ed.- no that was the Lizzies, the Orphans were the sad sacks). Of course these guys inevitably bust their helmets off revealing lollipop looking little heads and proceed to combine body rocking replete with alternating booty shaking and robot dancing, not the NSYNC style by the "we're on Star Search cobags!" dance beat down. All the while, David, Tina, Chris and Jerry just shit out little funk squiggles, and Byrne's only sweating for show- he could do it in his sleep. Oh, and those three lollipop funky hazmat kids? Fulsome, Chuckles and don'tEATnachos, from Well Rounded Nerds. This goes out to you.

Since K Got Over Me-The Clientele

2005-12-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

Picture two giants of the internet world, mirror images, yet distinct, both reflecting upon the same woman, a woman having broken each of their hearts in turn. How are the two men different? One, I imagine uncomfortably reclining in a mohair so-called easy chair, dressed in an unflappable blue with orange-trim dessing gown, something mistakenly called Pajamas in certain circles, absent-mindely stroking his probably evil yet similarly inscrutable pussy. His surroundings include a large, hardwood bookshelf filled with Lovecraft volumes and several purported real yet most certainly fabricated Necromomicons, and one possibly real yet poor translation. A half-filled brandy snifter reflects the embers of an untended fire, and a portrait. A velvety, feline portrait of K...

The other nurses a different poison, self-doubt. Doubt whether he did enough to nurture the caged tiger, K. Did he? Sadly, no. The doubt suffuses the unpredictable ways of a struggling heroic Saab parked in the driveway and the smoking, blank computer screen, a screen that only recently reflected K. The very same velvety, feline K. as above, only in a different guise, a red, white and blue and...orange one.

Various Germs records litter the cigarette-stained shag, a half-finished 1:64 scale model of some obscure never-successfully-flown test-pilot-bane Messerschmidt idly sits on a lonely, cluttered desk. Reverb-soaked, urbane images of K...K...indelibly etched in the brains of two men. Are they different? Perhaps not as they are both completed by her....spoken of only in hushed, whispered, broken tones as...K.

This song is dedicated to G. M. and t. Es, you know who you are, and of course, who K. is.

That One Techno Song-You Know the One

2005-12-17T19:48:00.000-08:00

This one goes out to Brad R. This is the song that they had on those ads for Gillette nee CMGI Field where his Pats play before it actually opened. The one with the crappy CGI showing all the amenities and crap. This song IS the Pats to me, and I know Brad must love it. You know how it goes. Ba-da-da-da-doo-doo Up shift Ba-da-da-da-doo-doo. I'm sure Brad's pulse starts to race when he hears this song, even though he knows deep in his heart Tom Brady is a WINGNUT COBAG [Yosef made me write that]. I picture him at Our House East back o' Northeastern, Bronson Arroyo's sister on his lap, watching the Pats win another superbowl and then going out to flip some cars out in front of Taste of Asia on Huntington. Nice win today, B!

Mandinka-Sinead O'Connor

2005-12-14T23:15:00.000-08:00

Why this song was never a huge hit in the US, I'll never know. Oh maybe it's because a bunch of sillies hearing this tune thought it was the B-52s. I guess when people start from zero, there is no such thing as ability to discriminate between some things that are completely different from one another. Of course I am an egotistical bastard, so when people think things are similar that I don't, I assume that they are being less sophisticated in their hearing, as opposed to me missing out on some subtle similarity that they are picking up. Mostly its because they have demonstrably crappy taste in music. Well, this tune goes out to Blue Girl. The song is forceful, put together, has a killer riff and has spunk and backbone, and whatever you think of Sinead, she tells it how she thinks it. It's just a great song. And I was thinking it reminded me of BG.

Canadian Boyfriend-All Girl Summer Fun Band

2005-12-11T22:56:00.000-08:00

I think we know that this goes out to Adorable Girlfriend and her warm feelings for the Uncanny Canadian, whose writing at one time graced these very pages.

This ditty features several lines that must be ironic, given the state of the lemony condo, UC's fixer-upper of an embassy on American soil. A not unejoyable toss-off from a band I have not really heard that I should listen to. This came on when I was listening to LA Seitz (from LA Seitz, natch) neighbor radio at Last-FM, my new favorite toy.

My only problem with the song is that is doesn't express what I think we all feel, and that is the Canadian Curling Association is a cabal of blackguards and scoundrels.

The Bomber-The James Gang

2005-12-11T22:11:00.000-08:00

The James Gang- these dudes were Freedom Rock before Freedom Rock even existed.

This song goes out to Twisty Faster, spinster aunt extraordinaire of patriarchy blaming fame at I Blame the Patriarchy. Twisty would clearly fathom the meaning of such a dedication, however for the rest of us, a little back story. Twisty has deigned to comment here one time more than this humble blog would ever deserve, that is to say once. She commented on a particular Friday Pooper Shooter where our computer lavished us with a particular Jethro Tull ditty "Minstrel in the Gallery" and Twisty mentioned an anecdote involving herb, dorm rooms and certain hippie-ish behavior.

Twisty now has a sitch that is attempting to abrogate her patriarchy blaming ability, which appears to be fueled by delicious tacos. We would like to deidicate to her this lost oh so jammy gem from Joe Walsh and the James Gang. Now, we realize that there is nothing more patriarchy than someone that has anything to do with the Eagles, but I would like the point out the length of this song (7:00) and the "mind-altering" guitar solo that incorporates Ravel's Bolero (which led to the song being unavailable in the Bolero version for many years). Also, the drummer seems to be thumping on the skins like he's wearing nothing but a marijuana leaf necklace, and Mr. Bass guy comes in like he's smoking a pipe with stars in his eyes and then it gets all trippy. Since the chemo is undelightfully knocking Twisty on her delightfully snow white bottom, we were going to recommend this song and some medicinal Mary Jane. Alas, in our delay of implemeting Dedication Week here at Song of the Day/Three Bulls!, we find that she is happily returned to full vim and obstreperousness by seemingly similar sage advice. Rock on, TF!

Images of Heaven-Peter Godwin

2005-12-09T00:20:00.000-08:00

So Pop Ren hooks me up with a song that has probably been in the back of my brain for a super long time, meaning I knew there was a particular song that I couldn't remember, and this was that song. That's twice in the last two weeks (the other was Adorable's "Homeboy"). This song was going to be my secret weapon in the war against Gavin M., but it sprained a calf-muscle out of the gate and I pulled it for something more nefarious. I didn't want to cause Gavin to retreat to his dark place, thinking of the dance floor blossoming of shy-Goth girl Samantha whatshername as he airdrummed his make believe Simmons electronic drum pads in his black jeans. Going home alone, like Morrissey said he would, he would cry into his pillow, thinking of this wistful modern rock masterpiece. Raising his meek voice in prayer to Dear Lord "why have you made me, Pinko Punko er Gavin M., such a cobag?" Only later would he find out that that sweet shy girl really had a crush on him, braces and all, but she was only waiting for him to ask her to dance to this very song, and since I didn't, er Gavin didn't, she married Bruce from Pittsburgh but treasured her TDK 60 minute mix tape of rare 12 inch singles that someone left her anonymously. Or at least that's how this song makes it feel like it happened, and I wouldn't want Gavin to revisit that bad place.

Irregardless*, a great song, legitimizing all possible derivations of the Flock of Seagulls flip [link to awesome Gavin post utilizing Flock of Seagulls here- thanks for tagging it with nothing relating to the band, save phonetically representing the synths on the track. Cobag].

*Lest Seitz think I used that "word"

Slang Teacher-Wide Boy Awake

2005-12-07T23:57:00.000-08:00

So Gavin M. and myself are waging a war of attrition. The skirmishes have consisted of an interchange of 80's obscurities. The goal: guess the band and/or song. The underdog, I rely on quick feints at the edge of Messr. Gavin's fraying, genius mind. He, the overdog, relies on the massive blindspot known as my lack of musical knowledge. So far the battles have included:

Gavin M.: Bluebells' "Cath" (a friendly exhortation to eat it cobag because I didn't know it)

Pinko: Freur "Devil and Darkness" (implied EAT IT COBAG since he should have known it)

Gavin M.: Orange Juice "Rip It Up" (completely awesome, but a definite EAT IT COBAG HOW MUCH DO YOU SUCK from the master, because how could it be possible that I didn't know it)

Pinko: Thrashing Doves "Beautiful Imbalance" (oh, now who is the master of obscure and forgotten?)

Everything has been a skirmish up to including the recent exhchange:

Gavin M.: Wide Boy Awake-Slang Teacher

Holy crap. Of course I didn't guess it as this band never even had an album. As an artifact people might be all, this sucks, it's English White Boy Hip-Hop from 1983!!!!!! What I might point out to you cobags, is the first 10 seconds could easily be Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" or New Order's "Perfect Kiss" and it probably predates them both. And it's got spacey walled up behind the cheese casiotone and of course some slappy bass. These oddities are actually important to remember before Clear Channel completely erases all musical history.

What's next? I'm gonna take a risk and try....

(pop renaissance- you have the raw material to feed my desire to crush G., please help me out)

Rip It Up-Orange Juice

2005-12-06T23:33:00.000-08:00

Hand claps. Lazy jangle. Sub-Fantastic Voyage electro-bassy farts. If this song had an eensy bit more low-end, some rap dude could sample it for cash money. Richard X produced Annie's "Chewing Gum" clearly has a squiggly antecedent in this booty boondoggle. Shades of Tom Tom Club's "Genius of Love" in some of the minor noodies. Intermittent Prince "banernernernerner" chinga ching (from outer space). Lackadaisical bandmembers bouncing to the tracks that had already been laid. Edwyn Collins soulfully lisping arch arch lyrics Franz Ferdinand probably heard when in their nappies. Sadly, No, I am not joking.

23 Minutes in Brussels-Luna

2005-12-01T22:47:00.000-08:00

Dean Wareham's (formerly of slow-core heroes Galaxie 500) now sadly caput second band, Luna, never got the reverence they deserved. For several reasons, one being the cobag music press loves to inflate the legend of G500. The Wareham sound, slow and deliberate, and fuzzy with his G500 cohorts Damon and Naomi, became cleaner and more tasteful, refined as it were, and refined is never new. Well, the man should be a guitar hero, and middle period album Penthouse, whence this song comes, is full of his meandering sinuous leads, never noodling, always embroidering. I can only descibe this kid of guitar sound as finger tips rippling still water. Does that make sense, because that's what it sounds like. His nasal vocal delivery will grow because the music is so good.

This song may also be an obscure reference to Suicide's "23 Minutes Over Brussels". Of course I drop that ref like I know something, but I don't know shit. I was in the Amoeba over in the Haight the other day, and they were playing this amazing album, full of scary vocals and moody, noisy soundscapes and some weird shimmering Farfisa-type organ, sounding slightly like Clinic, except a million times creepier. I ask the clerk what they are playing as I usually do (and not to suck up, I only ask if I like it, I think record clerks are usually totally awesome and helpful and only sometimes snobby, but when they are snobby I want to yell at them. Somehow, they can make you feel like sh*t, they have some serious power, the record store clerks) and the lady went and checked, and said "Suicide, the first album- the self-titled one."

I go look at the CD and see that it came out in the 70s and I was expecting it to have come out in 93 or something. And then I felt sad for myself. I always wanted an older brother or someone to share all these cool bands with me and expand my world view. My little sister is WAY more plugged in that I was, partly because of me, but now she has left me in the dust. Where were you pop renaissance? Where were you when I wanted to go to the Jesus and Mary Chain/Curve/Spiritualized show at St. Andrews? Where were you, Gavin M., with all your obscure art-scene crazy bands? Scratch that, I would have crapped myself at some of those Gavin shows. COMMENT PREDICTOR:

"I saw Suicide like 4 times at the CBGB, we opened for them one time."

Posted by Gavin M. 3:24 am

It'll End in Tears (I Won't Cry)-The Lilac Time

2005-11-30T22:20:00.000-08:00

Late 80's retro-popsters (still in existence) led by Stephen "Tintin" Duffy, retro in sensibility but of a certain 80's feel on this album, specifically the production on this album (& Love for All) courtesy of Ian Broudie. The sound presages Broudie's band The Lightning Seeds and fits somewhat with Dream Academy as well, but more real instruments. We imagine this particular song in a lost John Hughes/Real Genius hybrid. The good guys are implementing their plan and this soundtracks the intervening "stuff happening" (welding, the illicit obtaining of materiel, shopping, observing the bad guys, working out) montage. In this case it would be awesome because the song is good, and the montage has not yet become a hackneyed CSI Miami total bullsh*it where people spin down a single tube at a time in some neon porn set laboratory. However, getting back to the Scooby gang of our film- the question- why will it end in tears? Does the plan fail? Are the tears the deserved retribution visited upon the vice-principal? The dumpchuck jock ex of the love interest? Or the drill sergeant of the camp for troubled youth? All I know is that the good guys are defiant, and they're not gonna cry, especially not when converting the car into a convertible, blowtorch style.

Coax Me-Sloan

2005-11-30T00:56:00.000-08:00

Canadian power pop dorks, essentially like a more esoteric and less menacing (and now) less shitty Weezer. No, scratch that. It's hard to say, their first, Smeared is shoegazey and eclectic, including the Three Bulls! theme song "Underwhelmed", a song which essentially prophesies the geeky college indie music/blogger, and the stunning "I Am the Cancer". The second, Twice Removed was much less fuzzy, moving towards eclectic AM indie pop, and that is whence "Coax Me" comes. Non-sensical and punny, the lyrics seem written especially for Pinko Dorko's benefit, as he tends to notice the snarky turn of phrase. They have three of those type songs off of this one, today's song, "Penpals" and "Bells On" (the latter being the ultimate "I'm so sad I like this one girl but she doesn't notice me, but I'm pathetic in a secretly empathetic way"). Here's "Coax Me" (later in the week I'll write up a recommended list from this band, who really only have one crappy album out of a bunch- their latest).

It all seemed to happen so fast
Will you ever believe the way he passed away
I saw his widow speak on her fortune
She was feelin' pretty apathetic

Coax me, cajole me
Coax me, cajole me

If I drink concentrated OJ
Can I think Consolidated's okay?
It's not the band I hate, it's their fans
Three cans of water perverts me

Coax me, cajole me
Coax me, cajole me
Coax me, cajole me

And after he died
By rights she'd have cried
I gave mine away
I gave mine away

I saw a widow's peak on her forehead
It was full of lines and sinkers

Coax me, cajole me
Coax me, cajole me
Coax me, cajole me

Bonus lyrics: "Bells On"

While I'm at this funeral
You're in New York
I've been dividing my grieving
You're sleeping with a mutual friend

I dreamed that I kissed your mouth
And you thought about me
Over Christmas
Oh, you might know who I am
But I know who you are
Your heart is in your art
And mine's in New York

I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve
You're sleeping with a mutual friend
And I want to be with you again
And again
And again
I've thought about you a lot lately
So flash me your metal smile

I'm thinking about you
You're thinking about
New York
Though to you your friend was hurt
To him I owe him money
Will you pay back the thirty dollars
That he thinks I owe him?
But I don't owe him anything

If you had a funeral
I'd be there with bells on
La la la la la...

If I had a funeral
Would you even care?
Would you wear your silver dress?
Would you actually wear lipstick?
Would you lie upon my grave?
And be there with bells on
So you could ring me from this life?
From this life
From this life
So you could ring me from this life

SO PATHETIC AND SOOOOO GOOOD. AND FOR TEH, it's NOT in Morrissey voice!

I Should Be Allowed to Think-They Might Be Giants

2005-11-30T00:42:00.000-08:00

I'm not too cool to admit that these guys were the first show I went to. They were on their Flood tour, Flood being an album of 2 minute nasal-dork pop gems (if you're into that kind of thing). That's pretty much how their first three albums were. The show was amazing because it was back when people went to shows to, you know, dance and have fun without beating the shit out of each other or just standing there nodding. It started to get pretty hit and miss after Apollo 18 (their fourth I believe), and this track comes from their next one, John Henry. I was also disillusioned by this band accidently seeing them twice on their John Henry tour. This is when you realize how much stage patter is canned and it is a horrible horrible moment. I'm sorry, but this track quotes Allen Ginsberg then drops the line "I saw the worst bands of my generation/applied in magic marker to drywall" and that is funny. I'm not sorry that you are annoyed. I swear this song also rips a riff from Toto's Dune soundtrack, but I'm not nerd enough to know that for sure. Who's gonna field that one for us?

Even if I don't love TMBG, I can still think of 15 or so songs that entertain, including the geek-love anthem "She's an Angel" which completely blew my mind hearing it for the first time at the Utah State Fairgrounds. Ah, good times.

I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical
I should be allowed to glue my poster
I should be allowed to think

I should be allowed to glue my poster
I should be allowed to think
I should be allowed to think
I should be allowed to think
And I should be allowed to blurt the merest idea
If by random whim, one occurs to me
If necessary, leave paper stains on the grey utility pole

I saw the worst bands of my generation
applied by magic marker to dry wall
I should be allowed to shoot my mouth off
I should have a call in show

Positively Lost Me-The Rave Ups

2005-11-28T00:46:00.000-08:00

You lost a lot when you lost me/
Six paperback books and a dying tree

From WOXY Vintage. Wow, some aggressively jangle pop goodness. I completely forgot about the existence of anything about this song- I knew it from way back and have not heard it for at least 10 years. Anyone remember this one? Oh crap, of course you do, you've seen Pretty in Pink, which I have not. The song is not on the soundtrack, though I'm told the band plays the song on film when "Duckie" tries to get into a club.

I am annoyed by the fact that I cannot buy it anywhere except New Wave hits of the 80's Volume 12. I was hoping to find the vinyl, but I don't want to turn into pitchperfect. It does really bother me that stuff can be out of print and that once it does it can just disappear. Obviously, there is a lot of crap out there, but this was a well-like tune, and it should be available. Here's Trouser on it. I just love that jangly riff. And the "show Miss Piggy the waaaaaaaaaaaaay home."

Gunning for the Buddha-Shriekback

2005-11-16T22:44:00.000-08:00

We're on the road to go gunning for the Buddha/we know his name and he mustn't get away

For some reason this song got radio play from these English New Wavers' Big Night Music set (in SLC, UT). You might remember their dance floor stomp "Nemesis" from Oil and Gold. Trouser Press bio here. This song is one of those jaunty tunes that sounds just different enough, and is different enough from what you'd expect from them (the pounding stomp and harsh scraggly chant of "Big black nemesis/parthenogenesis" from "Nemesis"), that you remember it. Comes across as an islandy travelogue of some guys quest to go gunning for the Buddha, whatever that means. I picture Inside Edition era Bill O'Reilly and his cameraman on the hunt down for an elusive story in a Duran Duran video. And then it has a couple of notes in the outro (is it steel drum? I don't remember, my computer ate this song last time my hard drive got fried) that is the outro that you are pissed the DJ talks over. I really hate that. I'm guessing only pop ren, maybe Seitz know this song. I don't know what made me think about it, I think Midnight Oil got me thinking about crazy bald frontmen. Does Shreikback have one of those?

A Seitz Video Extra Twofer

2005-11-13T20:29:00.000-08:00

Today on the Alternative, the folks at VH-1 Classic provided us with a rare double. That's right, two Australian '80s videos in a row, one a relatively obscure track off a popular album, the other probably one of the more popular tracks off of a very obscure album.

First up was Midnight Oil's "Dreamworld", Peter Garret's polemic against coastal development in, I assume, his native country. This has actually long been one of my favorite Midnight Oil tunes. Nice hooks, solid melody, and as a bleeding heart liberal, the environmental protection theme resonated. As for the video, well, it's essentially a bunch of shots of the band playing in coastal areas, with Garret performing some of his patented gesticulations. There are numerous shots of Australia's lovely untouched Australian coasts, with hotels and industrial developments superimposed upon them, as if we couldn't quite grasp the message from the lyrics. OK, Peter, we get it. The whole "last square mile of terra firma gaveled in the mail" bit was pretty easy to figure out. Then again, this was the MTV generation they were shooting for. Not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. This song is off of the Diesel and Dust LP, the first one I really remember hitting in the States, thanks to tracks like Beds are Burning and The Dead Heart. This one, in my opinion, was the best. [I totally agree, along with "Bullroarer"-Ed.]

Second up was the first single off of the first album from the obscure Australian power pop band, the Hoodoo Gurus. This was a band that my older brother used to listen to when I was too young and too uncool to listen to good music. Now that I'm older and just as uncool, I have a better handle on what's good and what isn't, but some of that old stuff still passess the test of time. The video in question, "I Want You Back" from the album Stone Age Romeos is the first of a trio of strong tracks that open that album, followed by "Tojo Never Made it to Darwin" and "Leilani". This band, in my opinion, was really underappreciated on these shores. This is what the New Porographers would have sounded like 15-20 years ago, at least up through Magna Cum Louder.

Anyway, the video manages to be one of the few with even worse animation values than the first video mentioned in the post. Highlights include guitarist Brad Shepard playing a guitar solo/duet with a very poorly animated claymation dinosaur. Keep in mind that nothing in the song has anything to do with dinosaurs, nor, really, does anything on the album, except for the album cover, which still pretty inaccurate, as dinosaurs were all long dead by the time the stone age rolled around, unless you're one of those wingnut "young earthers" who think that T-Rex (non-Marc Bolan division) was hanging with Adam and Eve in Eden. But still, there they are. All over this video. Dinosaurs as far as the eye can see, thanks to the magic of blue screen technology. It's safe to say that ILM was not consulted for this video. The other hilight, as in all Hoodoo Gurus videos, is Dave Faulkner's hair, of which I can't find a good picture.

Sorry I haven't done one of these in while, but I'm a lazy bastard. Also, I'm trying to maintain some product scarcity. [haha- not like we're burning beds either- also we love "Bittersweet" by Hoodoo Gurus, from Mars Needs Guitars -Ed.]

If This Is A Plan-The Delgados

2005-10-27T02:25:00.000-07:00

If you think this song is not awesome then I have a plan that involves waterboarding your Big Kat-eating muncher. Let us be serious for uno momento. The Delgados are a late and lamented Scottish pop band fronted by Emma and some guy, and her songs are awesome and people unfairly malign his songs, but his are awesome too, as evidenced by this stunner and show closer from their penultimate album Hate. They are two sides of the same coin and you should seek them out. All of their albums are superb, and I would recommend Hate as a great place to start. Hate being the album where they play with the full deal- strings and other delightful orchestration as it were.

Rainbow in the Dark-Dio

2005-10-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

This is a joke. This can't be Dio. The Dio I always assumed to be DIO (from t-shirts and what not) was the ultimate in total deviltry and beastliness, I mean, t-shirt-wise was up there with Slayer. This had to be totally heavy. None could be heavier. The man who replaced Ozzy in Sabbath had to be a TOTAL badass. He would probably have huge horns coming out of his head, artfully concealed under a rad hood, only to be thrown back with exploding pyrotechnics, slaughter of animal offerings and hordes of supplicant, lamenting hot babes.

"Rainbow in the Dark" tells me I was played by some t-shirt marketing geniuses. Oh, Lord, was I mistaken. None of the above is remotely suggested by this song. Instead, Meat Loaf with a unicorn figurine collection is conjured vision. Is that so lame, it is actually bad ass???

UPDATE: I just say "Only a Mystery" by Dio on VH1 Classic. My fears above were not fearful enough. -20 hit points, dude.

Aces High-Iron Maiden

2005-10-20T00:43:00.000-07:00

Guitars in harmony, the standard metal preamble, staccato drum flares, ooh, then a time change- oh yeah, this is Maiden. Then it hits, urgent, propulsive description of preparations for a coming attack. This is Maiden in their patriotic non-Dune/Edgar Allen Poe phase. The third movement is where the songs really hits, you actually feel like Messerschmidts and Hurricanes and Spitfires are flying all over the place, tracers every which way, the Battle of Britain of course. The actual chorus part is too cheesy for me, but the movement (one of about ten) that hits at 1:55 is pure awesomeness, and this is one of the Maiden songs where you actually hear Steve Harris' bass, and actually appreciate it a little bit. The solos aren't even that over the top and ridiculous. Actually, what I like about this song, regardless of its cheese factor, is that it feels patriotic without being excessively jingoistic. Maybe its easier to be that way when the song doesn't come across like "Burn My Flag and I'll Burn Your Ass" style cobag sentiment. Also, when your country is not the biggest and most powerful on the block and was fighting for its life against NAZIS for goodness sake, you can have a little patriotic sentiment.

Additionally, if I may unbecomingly become serious pour un momento, when I hear this song I think about the Gregory Peck/Gary Merrill film Twelve O'Clock High. It's not about the Brits, but instead a Yank bomber squadron based in Britain. It details the bloody toll on bomber crews flying dangerous daylight long range bombing missions. They keep getting shot to hell. I won't ruin it for you, but the scene that gets me is the squadron member pedaling out to the deserted airfield after the war, they use the "Baa Baa Black Sheep" song and it just crushes you. Tonight, listening to Aces High, I am wondering if George W. Bush has ever contemplated what war does to our troops (no point in thinking whether he contemplates how Iraqis are affected) or it he's ever seen Twelve O'Clock High, or any other non-John Wayne (or Ronald Reagan) war movie. Perhaps he and his pappy, WWII pilot that he was, watched Gregory Peck unravel time and time again, but in a snarkily mocking way- "that's not how George Herbert Walker Bush was imprinted by the War, just Peck, a liberal movie icon." Maybe they just watched it for the flying footage, and pappy would say "one day you're going to fly planes just like me."

Prophecies of the Great Apocalypse-Dimmu Borgir

2005-10-18T19:48:00.000-07:00

OK, I admit that photo's kind of creepy

METAL WEEK-DAY ONE

While recording with a symphony orchestra is the ultimate in Spinal Crapitude, it does not make a "Black Metal" band's music sound heavier, in fact adding orchestration that sounds like incidental music from A Very Harry Potter Christmas diminishes any and all chances of heaviness. For example "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse" from Norway's Dimmu Borgir's Death Cult Armageddon sounds like John Williams and Danny Elfman getting together to cash in one last time to buy the world's largest pile of cocaine. And their route to Mt. Snowplow is to stroke the ego of a psychotic, Bach-loving, dungeons and dragons enthusiast with the idea of enslaving dumbed-down Dream Theatre metal goo, the cheesewad harmonies of System of a Down, minus the politics, and some paint-by-numbers scary sounding lyrics. Robert Plant singing about his nutsack is a million times heavier. We urge you to listen to this tune here. The band kindly provides a streaming sample of this, might as well crank it up work, if you are seeking new employment.

THROW UP THE DEVIL HORNS! IT'S METAL WEEK!

2005-10-17T02:30:00.000-07:00

We are taking requests. No Death Metal. Cheese metal, prog metal, cobag metal all OK. Don't abuse your privileges. In comments please. We shall commence tomorrow.

I Hate Scotland-ballboy

2005-10-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

ballboy have that seemingly so Scottish kind of earnest smart ass routine. They have the awesome Scotch accent, and they can be humorous, but this spoken word electric guitar whistful contemplation of life, Scotland, how people are, and a white t-shirt, and a pair of shorts and jumping into a pool just hit you right there. A completely surreal yet real meditation on reality. Like Three Bulls!, except funny, sad and oh yeah, accomplished. This is available somewhere on the internets for download and is off their ineptly name (not somuch as lacking ept but lacking apt) Club Anthems.

I Believe in You-Sinead O'Connor

2005-10-09T19:39:00.000-07:00

CONGRATS AND MAZEL TOV TO POP RENAISSANCE!!!!!!!!

Married somewheres around Oct. 1, we look forward to him getting back on the Three Bulls! train.

Three Bulls! dedicates the most romantic song we can think of to him and his bride. Originally sung by Bob Dylan, presumably about the big JC (from born again era Slow Train Coming), Ms. O'Connor just breaks your heart in two with a completely committed ode to her beloved, perhaps the same as Bob's, perhaps merely her mortal sweetheart. A B-side on the Fire in Babylon CD single. An absolute must. Three Bulls! plays this song when hiring henchmen, if they are moved, they clearly have hearts, and since the job description most certainly says "heartless" they are right out.

For Real-Okkervil River

2005-10-07T09:57:00.000-07:00

OK, these kids have an eensy bit of an "emo" feel, whatever that means. It sounds like he's singing incredibly earnestly. What gets you is that the lyrics are odd, off-kilter, "Shins-ian" but with a sinister quality of despair or darkness instead of whimsy. The song is quite clean, so you hang on his words. And you actually want him to start screaming because you are caught up in whatever his deal is, and it actually feels good. Available for your listening here. And of course the electric piano.

Video Extra - "For Love" - Lush

2005-10-06T18:41:00.000-07:00

Fairly average collection today. U2 was present for the second straight day, an "Alternative" rarity. Wire made their weekly appearance, as did Bob Mould (with Sugar), Frank Black (solo), and the Cure. Shockingly, today was both Sisters of Mercy and Weller free. Possibly the first time this has ever happened on "The Alternative".

Today's selection features something not often seen in alternative videos of the last 20 year. That, of course, is hot chicks. Yesterday's selection notwithstanding, if an alternative video has a hot chick in it, generally it's because she's in the band. Lush featured the oh-so-hot Miki Berenyi, and the not-quite-as-hot-but-still-attractive Emma Anderson, both on guitar, while the dude's handled the rhythm. Sort of the anti-Stratford Four.

There's really no story to this video. It's pretty much just the band playing their instruments, while Miki occasionally does something with some flowers. This is what I call "brilliant direction". When you've got hot chicks in your video, especially ones for which you don't need to pay extra, you use them.

As for the tune, this was the one of the singles off of Spooky (along with Nothing Natural and Superblast), the band's second LP. It's pretty much your basic shoegazer fare with a female vocalist, though not as crunchy and out there (and ground breaking) as My Bloody Valentine. With it's nice hooks and steady bass, this was one of the more radio friendly tracks on the album. They really wouldn't come out of this sound until releasing Lovelife in 1996, shortly before the suicide of drummer Chris Acland.

That wraps up the weekday episodes of the Alternative. It will air again Sunday at 10:00 am and pm. Videos not selected include the Hindu Love Gods' "Raspberry Beret", B.A.D. II's "the Globe", the Waitresses' "Make the Weather", and James' "Say Something".
[Ed.- which Lush had "Shake Baby Shake"? That was a mean spririted album, especially the duet with Jarvis Cocker.]

Seitz Video Extra - "When She Begins" - Social Distortion

2005-10-05T21:47:00.000-07:00

So Pinko gave me a key, inspired by this post on my own small piece of internet real estate, and since today was the first showing of VH-1's "The Alternative" since that momentous occasion, I thought I'd break the ice. It's a long one today, but as I'm "into the whole brevity thing", I'll try to keep them shorter in the future. I'd explain how this is going to work, but I a) havent' really figured it how I want to do it yet, and b) wasn't given instructions. So I'm on my own, and you all get to live with the results.

Today's episode was a bit on the weak side for my tastes. Rest assured, we had a Style Council video. Can't let a show go by without Paul Weller. There were the weekly appearances by Fishbone, Peter Murphy, and the Jesus and Mary Chain. As much as love JAMC, I'd appreciate something other than videos off Psychocandy once in a while. Don't get me wrong, it's a great album, but throw me some Honey's Dead once in a while. Maybe even a little Automatic. A guy like me really appreciates the occasional showing of Blues From a Gun.

I chose today's video not because of it's cinematic brilliance, but rather because it was a weak show overall, and I've always really liked this song. I'll be honest, I could have sworn this album, Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell, came out a long time after their self titled album, but apparently it was only a couple of years. I guess it just seems like it took them a long time considering both albums are pretty much full of the same song.

The setting is the Hollywood Palladium, where the band is playing a sold out show. The band is rocking, the crowd is rolling, and outside, on a surprisingly empty Sunset Blvd., a lone rockabilly chick (who, admittedly, is quite the spicy little number) stands outside with a rose, presumably to give to Mike Ness if she can talk her way past security. One wonders, if she's such a big fan, why didn't she just buy a freaking ticket? Cut to the crowd surfing fans, the inked up Ness, and back to our poor soul, who keeps on knockin', but can't get in. Just an aside, I saw these guys once at the Sun God Festival at UCSD around 1997 or so, and I don't remember any crowd surfing. Anyway, the big mean security guards keep shuttin' the door on her, and for some reason, they never think to offer her entrance in return for a blow job. More band shots, more mean security guards. Surely, you're thinking, this must end happily. Someway she'll sneak in and hand her flower to Ness, both literally and figuratively. Well, it does end happily...for Ness, who likely would have subjected himself to all sorts of communicable diseases, not to mention sloppy seconds, had the girl been allowed backstage. The girl is denied entrance, and moseys down the walk of fame, dropping her Rose on a star that probably has some significance, but frankly, I couldn't read it. Seriously, I went frame by frame on a 50" wide screen TV and couldn't make out the name.

I should probably rate this video on some sort of scale with a funny measurement device, like "I give it two meatballs" or something, but I'm not funny enough to think of a unit, so feel free to make suggestions. Videos seen but not reviewed from this episode include Pere Ubu's "Waiting for Mary", Ween's "Push th' Little Daisies", the Thompson Twins' "King For a Day", and Tom Verlaine's "Town Called Walker".

[Ed. -did they show this video?]

Test Transmission-Kasabian

2005-10-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

Derivative in the way that only certain derivative English bands can be, like they never put a foot into the wrong influence- these guys have Primal Scream, Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Kraftwerk and Neu! on their iPods, that’s for sure. What I like about this song is it is like a Krautrock/Madchester mix-it’s got that feel like is was made for a dance floor that you’d never see in the US, and it is filled with exquisitely produced sounds, and immaculate hand claps. Designed for that orgy scene on CSI before the pervo ritualistically kills the stripper. You might hate your cool self for liking this song, but it’s OK, it’s that good. The one I hate myself for liking is “Reason is Treason” but it has this perfect Krautrock beat in the middle, and I’ve only heard 30 seconds of one Neu! Song ever, and Kasabian steals it in this one from 2:35 to 3:20 in- for a brief time you are transported to some disco called Der Xanadu and the wind machine is blowing your girlfriend’s hair around all crazy sexy and there are like snowdrifts of cocaine everywhere.

Fire Woman-The Cult

2005-09-29T22:58:00.000-07:00

Crazy animal skin wearing English dude and hatted guitar wielding ghoul doing their version of American metal, most certainly not the wankage of Brit New Wave of Heavy Metal, where did these guys come from? AOR cheese that you KNOW you rock out to, and god damn it are you aren’t pissed when they don’t have this one in your dream where you are “forced” to do karaoke. You just wait to get out of your car on the way to work until after the break down in the middle so you can do your rock dog moves, then after the chorus you grab your soy chai, close the door to your Corolla and head off to the cube. Your identity is safe with me, rock dog.

***k the People-The Kills

2005-09-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

From Keep on Your Mean Side, a spare rough lonely plugged in chord or two, then “there’s a monkey on my back…” and repeat in a cool, collected duet between a man and a woman, you can hear her voice much more easily, then the guitar again. Seemingly made for a powerful scene in a film (in fact it is in one, though I forget- possibly The Beat That My Heart Skipped -Played here for one week, may never play where you are- rent it). Awesome.

Viorar Vel Til Loftarasa-Sigur Ros

2005-09-27T16:37:00.000-07:00

Icelandic orchestral swirling drama-prog. The key here is the almost but not quite clichéd building piano that reminds of the cloying Manic Street Preacher’s “If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next” but somehow is infinitely sad, but in that way like you are experiencing a virtual sad reality, but you’ll be able to get up and walk out of the movie theatre but you won’t want to talk about it because it wasn’t quite the sad you can shake off and the image of the sad thing will remain in your mind and you’ll feel a little tear, but you’ll hide it and pretend you’re cool. Then the guy starts singing in the weird language possibly not real and the illusion is busted, and you are secretly thankful, because you felt really, really sad. But when he stops singing he unleashes a bowed guitar with some violin and the sad of the piano is magnified a billion times. The false step is the ol’ nonsense string-y fade out. Beware if you buy this Svefn-G-Englar EP, it has that one song with the alien whale repeating squeal on it, and I totally hate that song.

Station Approach-Elbow

2005-09-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

Out domestically maybe soon, maybe not. Pitchfork already crapped on the import. Elbow tend to be tasteful in the Doves/Radiohead/More proggy than Travis Englishy oeuvre. I happen to like a bunch of songs from their first one, namely "Newborn" which is great live. "Station Approach" is just a slowly building type of song that sneaks up on you from the OK to the good to the really good category, but it stays reined in, it doesn't reach the absolute crushing awesome slightly bombastic heights of "Newborn" but I'm happy I just heard it on sweet WOXY. Oh, same goes for the new My Morning Jacket and the new Calla. These are all worth not changing the station when they come on, or to look for a download from the bands' sites.

UPDATE: I just heard it again, and it was even better, key line: "goths and goons fill the streets..."

Ocean House-Parsley Sound

2005-09-23T00:14:00.000-07:00

Whispered, ultra-retro English feeling neo-psychedelia. Sounds so old, yet new and tastefully lacking flute. Perfect for sliding into place in your Wes Anderson knockoff film in the Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack slot. Thing is this song is good enough to be in the real deal, but Wes would have to pretend it was some old band to do that. He is the master of affected retro. I have a never ending love affair with Bottle Rocket, a long distance crush on Rushmore, and off and on again restraining-order featuring thing with The Royal Tenenbaums (I’m just not that easy, but maybe I am) and I haven’t brought myself to call Steve Zissou’s number that I saw on the bathroom wall. I know if I had someone press some vinyl with this tune, put it in a distressed sleeve, and sent it to Wes, he’d love it with me, and we’d be able to share something again.

Lazy Line Painter Jane-Belle and Sebastian

2005-09-21T23:17:00.000-07:00

Considering the number of songs I love by this band (not a huge amount), I seem to have a lot of their CDs. I think the reason is, their great songs are so great, you are compelled to buy the stuff, even if you have that oh so lamented ratio of two great songs on an album of a lot of songs. Great, that’s your license to steal, cuz that’s like oh so douchey! See, when I buy tons of CDs and I know someone that has two legit CDs and 1500 stolen ones I get pissed- they don’t even have the argument of “I hate paying for a CD with all that filler”- uh, they never did in the first place. I digress. This song is awesome. It’s on one of their early singles. Their deal used to be singles were always non-album tracks and this was rereleased with two other singles as a mini-box set (a cardboard sleeve around the original packaging- packaging that somehow managed to raise the ire of Douchefork). Now available on a different comp I think.

The point is, this is a song that is worth buying with 10 other forgettable songs and one other genius song “The State I Am In”. Oh, the song is a duet with a girl and has this swirling, driving whistling outro that is stunning. Scottish indie rock-pop, retro influences, songs about boys and girls and drama in a detached yet emotional Smiths type way.

Stutter-Elastica

2005-09-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

Stutter-Elastica
2:25. Justine, etc. play Dr. Phil with your impotence, yeah they consider the fact that it could be her, but you know it’s you. They give you an out, maybe you’ve met someone else. You know that’s not the reason. And don’t try that “well, she’s hideous, I can’t bring myself…” You know that’s not true either. Here’s what true: your wallowing in patriarchy has led you to the point of abject decrepitude in the face of a liberated sexual dynamo. So when she sings:

Is there something you lack/
When I’m flat on my back?/
Is there something that I can do for you?/
It’s always something you hate/
Or maybe something you ate/
Or tell me is it the way that I touch you?
Have you found a new mate/
And is she really great/
Or is it just that I’m much to much for you?

It’s the latter, OK?

[Ed. With Atlas Shrugged, it’s that she’s totally crazy]

Open Ended-Sebadoh

2005-09-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

“Here’s an open-ended threat/
Subject to interpretation/
But I don’t want to fight just yet/
I wanted to see what would happen/”
And then the song really gets going. Not a happy song, but adult in a way, both accusatory and admissive of guilt, like an irrational fight in a relationship between two people that are smart and know better, but have to fight anyway because they know its over, and they’re human.

As opposed to some insane Randroids. How do they break up? “Honey, you must agree with me, as a rational person, that it’s over”
“Yes, honey you are right, it’s clear that I should move out directly.”
“I’ll keep the shared LGF log-in.”
“**** you, you ***-****** cobag.”
“Oh yeah? Eat lead!” BLAM BLAM BLAM!!!

The Mariner's Revenge Song-Decembrists

2005-09-19T11:20:00.000-07:00

Yargh, me be swillin' rums, oh ho, so many bottles to be forgetting the pain oh my dear mum, and her ravishing by a scurvy dog. I shall be filling him up with musket shot and he be tasting the blad o' my cutlass, he be. It shall be the black spot for him!

And here I be weaving my tale for the sodden lot o' ye.

We are two mariners
Our ships' sole survivors
In this belly of a whale

Its ribs our ceiling beams
Its guts our carpeting
I guess we have some time to kill

You may not remember me
I was a child of three
And you, a lad of eighteen

But I remember you
And I will relate to you
How our histories interweave

At the time you were
A rake and a roustabout
Spending all your money
On the whores and hounds
Oh Ohhhhh

You had a charming air
All cheap and debonair
My widowed mother found so sweet

And so she took you in
Her sheets still warm with him
Now filled with filth and foul disease

As time wore on you proved
A debt-ridden drunken mess
Leaving my mother
A poor consumptive wretch
Oh Ohhhhh

And then you disappeared
Your gambling arrears
The only thing you left behind

And then the magistrate
Reclaimed our small estate
And my poor mother lost her mind

Then one day in spring
My dear sweet mother died
But before she did
I took her hand as she, dying, cried:
Oh Ohhhhh

"Find him, bind him
Tie him to a pole and break
His fingers to splinters
Drag him to a hole until he
Wakes up naked
Clawing at the ceiling
Of his grave
*sigh*"

It took me fifteen years
To swallow all my tears
Among the urchins in the street

Until a priory
Took pity and hired me
To keep their vestry nice and neat

But never once in the employ
Of these holy men
Did I ever once turn my mind
From the thought of revenge
Oh Ohhhhh

One night I overheard
The Prior exchanging words
With a penitent whaler from the sea

The captain of his ship
Who matched you toe to tip
Was known for wanton cruelty

The following day
I shipped to sea
With a privateer

And in the whistle
Of the wind
I could almost hear...
Oh Ohhhhh

"Find him, bind him
Tie him to a pole and break
His fingers to splinters
Drag him to a hole until he
Wakes up naked
Clawing at the ceiling
Of his grave

"There is one thing I must say to you
As you sail across the sea
Always, your mother will watch over you
As you avenge this wicked deed"

[haunting, sailor-esque musical interlude lead by mandolin, accordion and tuba]

And then that fateful night
We had you in our sight
After twenty months at sea

Your starboard flank abeam
I was getting my muskets clean
When came this rumbling from beneath

The ocean shook
The sky went black
And the captain quailed

And before us grew
The angry jaws
Of a giant whale

[instrumental noise]
Oh Ohhhhhhhhhh
[screaming]
Ohhhhh
[screaming]

Don't know how I survived
The crew all was chewed alive
I must have slipped between his teeth

But, O! What providence!
What divine intelligence!
That you should survive
As well as me

It gives my heart
Great joy
To see your eyes fill with fear

So lean in close
And I will whisper
The last words you'll hear
Ohh Ohhhhh

Ageless Beauty - Stars

2005-09-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

Canadia has produced a lot of very good power pop. There's really nothing cultural about the music scene in Canada to suggest to me why this is predictable, but the number of bands like Sloan and New Pornographers and Stars - well there must be more than just three of them - impresses.

Ageless Beauty is the standout song from the latest CD by Stars, Set Yourself On Fire. The song catches your attention from the very beginning with its driving descending power chords and the prominent girl/boy harmonized chorus proclaiming "Ageless Beauty". That's all I need. Everything else in the song is great and interesting. This includes a subtle chorus of Woohoo that you have to listen for and some funky reverb effects. Lyrically, the song consitutes a most beautiful defiant poem, words available here.

This is a great song, and you don't need to take my word for it, since you can legally download it here. The rest of the CD is somewhat uneven, with about three other excellent tracks, and others good, but not memorable. I like this band. I will probably think about getting their previous CD, Heart, since I am no longer so queasy about the topic.

No Joy In Mudville-Death Cab For Cutie

2005-09-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

Right off the bat I'm not gonna talk about the OC or selling out or any of that crap. I don't love this band because he usually sounds like he's singing his diary to something that's not really a tune in a bad meandering way, worse the band usually seems like it is going in another direction. Many of their songs do not have an imposed sense of structure. Bands I like better also have this tendency, even my beloved Smiths, on their less successful tracks do this. Interpol does it as well (in fact they do it all over their boring newer album). This absolute GEM from DCFC does not do that. The song is a quiet builder that sounds like an amazing band showed up to open mic night at the empty coffee shop after the poetry slam let out. The room feels small, but he has just enough metallic reverb on his voice that you can feel the space perfectly and you hand on his amplfied breath. He does not sing about skin or touching which he always seems to be going on about. The song build with the feel of a plaintive, slow drunken waltz, yet it is the purpose and quiet charm of the band that makes you feel like you want to listen. With some amazing pop songs, you feel like all the notes are the right ones intuitively, this is the opposite, you can't predict where the song goes, but after you have been there, you can't think it could have been better otherwise.

Postscript: their new radio track sings about skin, faces, etc. and sounds like a diary entry, and many will claim it is too slick. It actually sounds incredibly well put together. Much better than the overcooked electronic noodling of The Postal Service which undercuts his voice and makes it sound more maudlin than you thought it could.

The Bleeding Heart Show/Jackie Dressed in Cobras-The New Pornographers

2005-09-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

When the NPs label released "Twin Cinema" and "Use It" as free MP3 downloads, they were fucking with us, saying these were two "standout tracks" from Twin Cinema, when in all actuality they could have picked anything they wanted. This album is a masterpiece of songcraft. What I mean by that is the songs save one or two seem as well constructed as possible. The sound on this album is much less dense and much more clear than on their previous two, yet it doesn't border on slick, it just sounds clear. Perhaps it is the slightly increased use of reverb, and the focus on guitar and piano. The first song "The Bleeding Heart Show" is almost a ballad for them, meaning mid-tempo, but filled with quiet strumming at the beginning, and you can feel it build toward something, and that something is a glorious coda filled with "Hey la hey la" and you want to cry, not because it is sad, but because it is so good.

"Jackie Dressed in Cobras" is a Dan Bejar contribution (the NPs have two main songwriters) and Dan is the more obscure and acquired taste. He is theatrical and offbeat, and this song is no exception, except he incorporates some incredibly catchy without being too hooky Buffalo Springfield guitar and Neko Case's voice and some totally insane lyrics. And he spits them out in staccato bursts and the band follows him. I can't explain it, this album is very mature, possibly a disappointment for some, but a revelation for me. These guys are at the top of their game, and the new album is an indie pop jewel. Treasure it, and BUY it- gives these guys enough support that they go back into the studio.

Sussudio-Phil Collins

2005-09-09T00:44:00.000-07:00

pop renaissance guests. His band page here.

Ahhhh...set the way-back machine to the days of "night flight" on the usa network...

At a glance, merely the kind of lyrics you'd expect from someone who looks like phil collins: totally diggin' this girl's scene, and he's just got to figure out a way to get baby between the sheets. Problem is, baby ain't sendin' no signals and he ain't sure she's even down with a little phil (and let's face it, he IS a little phil). Typical boy-meets-girl, boy-wants-girl.

But then there's that name - sussudio. It's not merely the title. He says it about 94 fucking times in the song. As a matter of fact, we should have seen it coming cos he says in the chorus "i feel so good if i just say the word 'sussudio'". and he proves it...by saying it the remaining 83 times.

So what the fuck is it? We're led to believe it's a girl, but there is no one on this planet who would name a child sussudio (except, i imagine, a phil collins fan). Personally, i think ol' phil was pretty pissed up the night the band was jamming this and one of the horn players, who had been doing shots of scotch with phil since midday, pulled phil in the back to relive a bit of the old genesis days with a joint the size of a drumstick that was being passed around by the horn section. Phil deflected a couple of taunts but the pull of the reefer was too great - next thing you know he's high as a kite, scat singing for all he's worth, of which the term "sussudio" was a result. the rest of it, thankfully, was faded into oblivion.

I will tell you now, you do NOT want to suffer the extended version. my parents were big on phil collins and i can safely say there is nothing less necessary than a phil collins 12" mix.

Ed note: I heard this in the car the other day and actually turned it up. I know, I suck. But I rolled up the window first to hide my shame. You know you would have done the same thing. Don't lie.

Christopher Lydon-The Dresden Dolls

2005-09-04T22:55:00.000-07:00

Guest post: mdhatter (a Sadly, No! ALL-STAR)

My favorite song of the moment, a moment being 18
hours +/-, is "Christopher Lydon" from 'A if for
Accident', by the Dresden Dolls. It's a shame their
one radio track is, well, that song you maybe heard.

I like this song today because I am lamenting the loss
of NPR as a leader in the news of my nation. When they
let this master of critical debate get away from their
radio network, chased him out, then Bob Edwards, then
others, then brought in Slate. Well, the pattern is
laid, and my money is going elsewhere. I wish there
were a smaller more independent affiliate with more
PRI, MPR, heck, even pacifica, but there isn't. 'XM'PR
ain't bad. But, the music is the point.

This is a song of the good old days. National radio
personalities that were good enough to play the muse
for massively talented artists.

Lyrics and info here.

Go buy their live album, or see them, their version of
"War Pigs" for Piano and Drum is UN-BE-LIEVABLE.

Editor's Note: Lydon was actually pushed out of WBUR Boston in a salary debate, and was known for difficulty and ego- info here. While derided by some as a pompous ass, others LOVED him.

Editor's other note: is mdhatter trying to make this page look exceedingly liberal? We remember people hating Lydon upon reflection, but we are massively intrigued by any song about him.

Dr. Baker-The Beta Band

2005-09-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

A piano starts playing itself in an empty room. The vocals come in from halfway down a well. Some squeaky bits, then some chimes and marimba? Vocals floating in the window on the stiff breeze. The lonely piano again. Haunting, not sad, and that’s what makes you feel sad. Then some squeak, and some chimes. Something about Dr. Baker. All I want you to do is hear this song. I think it is the best Beta Band song, and it is worth a buck.

Three-Hope Chest

2005-09-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Song of the Day regular pop renaissance has a band! A band that is accomplished, and plays the kind of music that we like- called shoegaze by some, this tune available for download here. The band is reminiscent of the ringing sound of Cocteau Twins, slowdive and Ride. The voice is a little slowdive, but in another song I felt a little of the Church. I think it is tough to produce this sound without sounding tinny- let's just say that some shoegaze albums are among the most expensive of all time. I would be that the song sounds better live, but all in all a nice tune in my fave genre. I believe this is a demo track, so all in all a nice effort. Filled out a little ont he low end, and I think it would become more resonant. I like it, and I am glad that pop renaissance stops by, I can tell pr loves music, and his/her input is appreciated. Interestingly, my party shuffle hopped to My Bloody Valentine afterwards, and the drums sounded similar. Great job, pop ren.- we finally know someone in a band that plays music up our alley, and it doesn't suck!

Hell Bent For Leather-Judas Priest

2005-08-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

Here at Song of the Day we like all kinds of music. Some music we like because it is fun. I don't think this is the same as "it's so bad, it's good" or "ironically" liking something. The thing about almost all ironic music is that it always seems to where it's heart on it's sleeve. Music that makes no apologies for how emotional, grandiose or ridiculous it seems or is. Many songs I would never buy, but I love hearing in the car- you know- radio music- songs that you can sing along to like Karaoke, because what is being said in the song is not something you would ever say- it is almost like role playing.

The role playing part of the above paragraph has nothing to do with this song, I assure you, which I found myself singing along to yesterday in the car- thanks 107.7 the Bone- your DJs all sound like my high school principal or they should be on a Christian station, yet you play this:

Seek him here, seek him on the highway
Never knowing when he’ll appear
All await, engine’s ticking over
Hear the roar as they sense the fear

Wheels! a glint of steel and a flash of light!
Screams! from a streak of fire as he strikes!

Hell bent, hell bent for leather
Hell bent, hell bent for leather

Black as night, faster than a shadowcrimson flare from a raging sun
An exhibition, of sheer precision
Yet no one knows from where he comes

Fools! self destruct cannot take that crown
Dreams! crash one by one to the ground

Hell bent, hell bent for leather
Hell bent, hell bent for leather

There’s many who tried to prove that they’re faster
But they didn’t last and they died as they tried

There’s many who tried to prove that they’re faster
But they didn’t last and they died as they tried

Hell bent, hell bent for leather
Hell bent, hell bent for leather
Hell bent, hell bent for leather
Hell bent, hell bent for leather

Um, Rob Halford was never in the closet, it seems. The closet was in plain sight. PRIEST!! RAWKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Architecture in Helsinki-It'5!

2005-08-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

Architecture in Helsinki are a strange collective. It's probably an Australian thing. I think they make up instruments that they want in a song ahead of time and put the song together around that. Which makes for interesting songs, especially when the tuba is involved. Their previous CD, Fingers Crossed, was all about cutesy and ecelctic music. I like it a lot. It kind of falls into the Elephant 6 subgenre of music, of which I'm a big fan. I like poppy and unabashedly 60's-influenced music.

It'5! is a very different song, from their very different CD In Case We Die. It begins with a chant of the obscure lyric "stranger danger, danger stranger, when you gonna follow through?" And then gets right into a disco beat, which keeps getting interrupted by random things until the song really takes off. Once it does, it resembles a Badly Drawn Boy song more than anything else. Maybe a little Scissors Sister. With the occasional refrain "It's 5!" or "It is 5!". The beat is pretty good. I could almost see someone dancing to the music. Maybe myself .....

I'm curious why people keep comparing In Case We Die to the Fiery Furnaces. I just don't hear it. They happen to be two groups that make diverse sounding music, that sometimes changes abruptly. AiH never sounds proggy while FF is very proggy.

Mesh-New Order

2005-08-23T00:37:00.000-07:00

Ian Curtis’s all too early exit from this world (the lead singer of what was then Joy Division killed himself before their first US Tour was to start. Joy Division became New Order. The New Order that was then was different from the New Order you think about, the New Order of the sorority girls screaming to each other to flock to the dance floor and the first strains of “Bizarre Love Triangle” (don’t get all pissy, Three Bulls! was slinking onto the floor right behind them). The transition between Joy Division and New Order was never as seamless as on a B-side to the 1981-1982 Everthing’s Gone Green/Temptation EP- “Mesh” (also found of singles comp Substance). The difference being that the synthesizer is less a slash across the starkness of the music like on the Joy Sivision set Closer and, while still stark, and that the darkly, searingly personal vocals of Ian Curtis are replaced by the more distant, almost contemplative (at least on this track) vocals of Bernard Sumner. This track along with the rest of the EP are what I consider to be New Order’s best work, and for those that consider them lightweights, this track is a post-punk classic.

Kids on Holiday-Animal Collective

2005-08-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

A mystical, hushed koan to some airport in Purgatory. The vocals emanate from some crack in the wall as the music, no, the sound shuffles through ambient samples. These guys have been decribed as spacey cracked campfire music embellished with a load of Brian Wilson studio outtakes. I don't know. I think if you can handle the off-kilter nature of this song, it comes across as a spacey poem. Below is a drawing from someone at Tiny Mix Tapes who drew this song.
The whole article is here (you have to see it). The lyrics merely list the observed details of a trip to the airport in a kind of stream of consciousness that feels like monks chanting, their hushed, lilting voices settling you into sleep. For some reason it does not conjure up the airport of today with security delays and fear of terrorism, but the aiport of our childhoods, the gateway to the unknown via the sky chariots of Eastern, Pan-Am, TWA, Braniff.

Way Out-The La's

2005-08-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

The late, great, lamented La's. Part of the English tradition for retro, psychedelic bands with jangly guitars. Many such bands sound derivative, while some sound only like themselves (The Smiths). The La's are in bewtween. Clearly a retro sound, but their sole self titled album is clearly their own work. The song you know is "There She Goes" a perfect slice of jangly strummed guitar pop. In some markets, they even got another song played, "Timeless Melody"- I hold this one closer to my heart, as it has not been covered by a pop band and played in every mall in America. "Way Out" is in a semilar vein, assertive, jangly guitar, paired with gravelly vocals, some hand claps. I always saw our heroes driving into the sunset with the credits rolling listening to the song- "givin' it all you got now..."

Rat in Mi Kitchen-UB 40

2005-08-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

I don't know if this song is a cover or an original. It has been requested by Geenie Cola in honor of our apparent rodent houseguest. Our guest is not a rat, but has sadly been marked for death, luckily this liberal non-homeowner is in charge, and this house is not Tora Bora, so there is a good chance that this little furry guy is dead meat. Back to the song- I know UB40 are the touch of death to coolness, but I like this song. "There's a rat in the kitchen/what I'm a gonna do?/I'm gonna feast on rat/that's what I'm gonna do/I'm gonna feast on rat/whoa-oh-oh yeah". A relaxing mix of English dub/reggae superior to their instant-reggae covers, and the extended version has a great Herb Alpert trumpet solo. Reminds me of the 80s in a non-retro cheese way, summer camp, good times. And a soon to be dead mouse. Sorry, PETA. We'll do it as painless as possible, not Abu Ghraib for this little guy.

Inside Out-Chameleons UK

2005-08-17T00:07:00.000-07:00

Chameleons are a relatively unknown yet influential English band. They had a Geffen release Strange Times from 1986 and they do sound a little dated, perhaps it is the bombastic type lyrics. The reason they continue to be awesome is their expansive, urgent and spacious guitar sound. Their sound remains controlled, so it never reaches the stadium bombast of U2 or Simple Minds (the Steve Lillywhite sound), and music is just restrained enough that the guitars don't chime bouncing off the moon a la The Edge, merely a very large warehouse. Much more lush than Echo and the Bunnymen, yet less romantic. This band is the clear antecedent of Interpol's debut Turn On The Bright Lights, more so than the oft quoted Joy Division. Chameleons UK's most famous track is "Swamp Thing", which got play on some Modern Rock stations in the US (obviously they were much bigger in England). "Inside Out" is from a release of Strange Times with bonus tracks, and is the most common version floating around, but not the one on iTunes. This song, whether you like (or hate) the vocals and lyrics has such an insistent guitar and commanding rythym, that it should still make an impression. The overly dramatic delivery of the lead singer doesn't bother me, because I fell in love with this album on headphones on an airplane with the volume maxed and all I could hear was the space within the songs and the chiming, snaky guitar, which are at their most insistent on "Inside Out". Also amongst the bonus tracks, a Bowie cover, and a cover of The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" that is converted completely into a Chameleons song (whether you think that is a travesty or not).

Ocean Rain-Echo and the Bunnymen

2005-08-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

Maybe now that some of Three Bulls! are in love and some have had their hearts broken, more of us will appreciate the complexities of this song. Who knows what this title track from their fourth album? really means, but every note of the song drips with longing/possibly heartbreak/possibly love in a langourous and spare way. Actually romantic strings, minimalist guitar (Will Sergeant is not a guitar genius as has been romaticized, but he is full of good taste and creative), somehow a space wider than an ocean for Ian McCullough to fill with his expansive baritone. He sparingly uses that space between his registers, you know the "Lips Like Sugar" space, until he just absolutely lets go "screaming from beneath the waves/beneath the ocean waves" and you want him to go down, only so you can be released from his power. I love this band and I think this is their best song by far (all the kids these days might know them from "The Killing Moon" which was used in Donnie Darko). That song is also from Ocean Rain, and the band plays the last four songs off the album together in a block. There's a reason why the final song is "Ocean Rain" and not "The Killing Moon".

Song For Children-Brian Wilson

2005-08-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

As part of my celebration of the second live performance I have seen of Brian Wilson's SMiLE, I chose this particular track because it reveals so much about how things changed from the days of the Beach Boys bootlegs and how the final album matured so much.

Song for Children began as an instrumental melody called Look. Look is a lovely track. It began with a keyboard and a beautiful horn flourish followed by bass stuff and a very high-pitched mallet percussion melody with different percussive and tubic punctuations. It's a beautiful piece. For the final SMiLE version, several things changed without the structure and melody being altered. First, the piece was placed thematically in the second suite - centred on children. Second, the piece was directly hooked to the previous track Wonderful through the ingeneious transition of Wonderful->Won->One->Wonderful. It's so great. Third, the thematic link of Child is the father of the son was brought back lyrically. The song is not so much a single lyrical message, as a combination of all the songs in the suite. By adding the words and the thematic links to other parts of SMiLE, the song is a million times better. Even though it isn't the same level of masterpiece as Cabinessence, Good Vibrations, Heroes and Villains, or Surf's Up, I think this is the quintissential SMiLE track.

Use It/Twin Cinema-The New Pornographers

2005-08-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

Power pop evil-geniuses continue their assualt on our abilities to resist hookaliciousness. Just when we thought they couldn't become even more harmonious, integrating song-writers and different voices, Carl Newman's straining poptastic lead, Neko Case's booming country belt tamed for AM radio bliss, and Dan Bejar's theatrically leaning croak after second album growth and refinement on The Electric Version. Well, our favorite supergroup of all time returns with two offerings from their forthcoming Twin Cinema LB out August 24. Downloadable here. Both songs show growth, and both are Carl Newman leads with Neko Case backing. Info on their website claims these are the two standouts from the new album, but I would doubt that considering their albums are always chock-a-block full (nary a skippable track to my ears). "Use It" shows more growth, with "Twin Cinema" more of a refined usual track, and each get better with every listen. Some people consider their songs too busy, and "Twin Cinema" has an unfortunate guitar "solo" that detracts from the song, but segues into a nice break, which segues into a nicer break that comes back around the the great intro part, so no probs. "Use It" is more accessible and whets our appetite for the full album.
"You had to send the wrecking crew after me/I can't walk right"

Open Request Thread

2005-08-08T00:46:00.000-07:00

We still have more gift certificate to blow and we've been getting totally awesome suggestions, keep them coming. Also, if you want to write up a song yourself, throw it in the comments, and we'll put it above the fold.

Hopeless-The Wrens

2005-08-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of buzz on SoftD about The Wrens. And for good reason. The featured SoftD song by said group, Surprise, Honeycomb, is one of the great songs. Period. But more mature and moving than Secaucus as a whole was the latest CD by The Wrens, The Meadowlands. This CD tells the story of what happens to rock musicians when they grow up and become adults. There is heartbreak. There is love. There is hurt. There is divorce. There is lonliness. And it is all captured on this fantastic and moving CD.

Hopeless is probably the most, well hopeless, seeming of the tracks. But it really isn't. The theme of the song is the concept of being used. A bad relationship whose only possible conclusion is its termination and where the only dignity that could come of it was in doing the leaving. It's bitter, biting, and in the end justly vindictive. The woman getting served in this song deserves it in the worst way, and the only thing not leaving you crushed to pieces is the righteousness of the anger. For me, this particular lyric sums up the song nicely (full lyrics available here):

and now you're sorry for the things you did to me
I want you to know
I feel I was the one who got used and use to
just about anything you would tell me

I love the contrast between being used and getting used to. Funny that for a song that I like so much, I haven't commented on the music yet. The music is perfect, but I can't describe why. It has the driving guitar, and the beat that starts slow and keeps bulding in tempo and dynamics as the anger grows and grows. And like the words, the music is relentless and loud. The singing is terrific as well. During the more dramatic lyrics, there is some overdubbing that, while not quite harmonic, does sound richer and more joined. This is the song of many men - not one.

Final Solution- Pere Ubu

2005-08-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

How Jedmunds can have a soft, rotten spot in his heart for Oasis, yet treasure the straight-ahead feeling of the Avett Brothers and now this absolute art-punk masterpiece by Pere Ubu? What can I say, Pere Ubu is a band namechecked more by musicians than those not in bands. This song unfolds with a slow grind of a staccato riff, yet seems to proceed in movements. As raw as it sounds, it clearly has been fashioned, there is guitar noise that seems the product of a idiot savant, every squawk, grind, fill seems to fit perfectly organically into the song. It is no use to try to explain it. Hearing this song, was like having 10 songs that probably ripped off its sound on the tip of my tongue, yet not being able to name any of them. Then the last two minutes hit, like a soaring outro, without histrionics, without pandering, the song just goes into a different gear. I feel like Jonny and Ed from Radiohead have this album, even though I can’t say they sound similar. It is like anti-prog that is still prog in that the song has movements and virtuosity of a sort, but none of them conventionally proggy-wank. The only drawback is the phrase “final solution” which for me is too attached to the Holocaust to completely feel comfortable with it in a song, not that this song has anything to do with that. Apprently this song was a single that originated with the band that gave birth to Pere Ubu, and is from ‘76(!!) iTunes says it’s their most popular track, but I would look into more by these guys. Once again, A f*cking plus from the readers. Keep it up kids, we haven’t wasted a buck yet!

The Fitted Shirt-Spoon (Reprise)

2005-08-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Jedmunds- we're going with the Pere Ubu coming up- if you feel like gettin' your hands on Surprise, Honeycomb by the Wrens, we think you might like it.

The Uncanny One decided that all he wanted to convey about this song from Spoon's Girls Can Tell was a vaguely Led Zep thump to the drums (think “When The Levee Breaks” for the feel but not the same beat- nothing could be as heavy as Bonzo on that track). Instead I’d like to convey that this song is destined for one place, to be ruined by a shitty movie, while at the same time making that movie worth watching. In the film this song will first be used to show the protagonist getting ready for work, putting on the clothes, walking down the street- Manhattan of course, the skyline shot, the crowd shot, the camera pan up the big tall office building, the protagonist walking in, the song fading out as the asshole boss comes up. Helen Slater, is that you at the drinking fountain? Then the middle portion of the song will be reprised over the credits as scenes of the movie will play into freeze frames, solely for the sake of playing this awesome f*cking song again. The film, if that is what it wants to be called, will of course get the song wrong.

It is not an ode to the working man- it is an to a working man, someone remembering his dad go to work, represented by the fitted shirt. How can a song be so conservative really, and not be reactionary at all? Because being wistful for long gone days, doesn’t mean you are going to force the world back into your own personal dark ages. And besides, in the totally amazing break down we hear “one day it’ll take/ and they’ll start to make/shirts that fit right/til then I suppose/ I still got dad clothes/ I guess that’s alright/”. It may be seen by a shout out to the patriarchy, I see it as a shout out to dad, in a way that’s probably a little conservative (the real definition) and I could get behind that, because you know? He said “its alright.”

If You Could Save Yourself (You’d Save Us All)-Ween

2005-08-04T10:16:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I am the perfect person to write this, as I am the non-Ween fan that had sneaking suspicions that there must be something to all the lunatic Weeniacs claims that there is something to be maniacal about. See, the brothers Ween dropped the biggest turd in the history of turds to ever be turded. That turd was like manna from heaven for pot-smoking frat boys and was known as “Push the Little Daisies” and sung in a style so grating, it was as if pot smoke was really helium to make their voices all squeaky in between the bongy giggles. This atrocity has led me to wish to never hear Ween again. Of course, Ween album after Ween album comes out and some douchey critic says “Ween’s awesome! One of them farted at my local late night diner after the show! I’ve made that booth a shrine!”

In fact the epiphany that is IYCSY(YSUA) is from the Ween album Quebec, and I was struck by the memory that a song had played in a record store, and it sounded similar to Beck’s “Nobody’s Fault But My Own”- in the downer, psychedelic way, and I asked the clerk what is was and he said “Ween.” And of course I thought he was f*cking with me because I wasn’t cool enough to know who the band really was. Coming to the point: this Ween tune is like a non-country psychedelic sister to yesterday’s song. The psychedelia is that of say Roger Waters a la “Goodbye Cruel World” with a little bit of organ, filtered through Three Bulls! faves The Radar Brothers. It has that sort of lilting punch-drunk waltz feel, and it does also feel like the kind of f*ck you defiance of somone that at last has the inclination to pick ones head up off the bar, if only one last time- “I was on my knees/when you knocked me down”-- I could only love this song when I knew it was over and the hated “Push the Daisies Up” Ween had indeed proven to have done just that. A fucking plus Iggie. The world needs to come out of their Ween-shelters.

Request Thread, or write it yourself

2005-08-03T00:25:00.000-07:00

You know what to do.

Swept Away (Sentimental Version)-The Avett Brothers

2005-08-03T00:12:00.000-07:00

Three Bulls! has answered the Jedmunds call- today's song is a country-folksy roots offering from the Avett Brothers called "Swept Away" from their 2004 album Mignonette. Right off the bat we can see that we fucked up when we first bought the non-sentimental version, which is more banjo and like the band is playing at a bar that plays both kinds of music, alt- country and western, whereas the delicate and sensitive "Sentimental Version" has the female back-up and quietly picked and strummed guitar- oh a bonus verse by the backup singer so it is the old sing and response- and the lead vocals are sung in a more emotional and deliberate way. The normal version comes off as straight-ahead and doesn't quite connect, but the feeling in the "Sentimental Version" blows the doors off. A great song. We would guess this should be filed under alt-country, or bluegrass, or a little folky. The stuff that we listen to usually only has a little country flavor ("contains 1% country"), Iron and Wine, Kingsbury Manx, Wilco (not country but they have the roots), Mojave 3, Pernice Brothers, the Sadies, Neko Case, and Rilo Kiley. Easily worth 1.98 plus tax (we'll only count a buck against our stipulated 5. My rule is if you have heard of the band, borrowing is OK to preview, but if you want it, buy it. Support the band. Odds are no one would ever hear of them if everyone stole their shit. And writing about them on Teh internets does not absolve you of your sin against indie music.

Iggie has the next request as her first was already on our shelf. 4 dollars left, people. There have got to be songs out there that you want to share. Or just waste our money, pick something by GG Allin. No link, cobags, you can look it up in Wikipedia.

We Used To Be Friends-Dandy Warhols

2005-08-01T22:16:00.000-07:00

Their videos are not great but you can listen and watch the song for free here.

Our first request of our Song of the Day challenge. This goes out to our loyal reader Iggie. Who is now making me think that I must know his Boston-lovin' tuna sub eating self, and maybe he is sending some bizarre message to me, like I have probably screwed him over somehow and know his comments are the frickin' Tell-Tale Heart thumping away under my floorboards. I totally don't think I killed anyone named Iggie, but if ghosts can post, I may be done for.

Today's song is "We Used To Be Friends" by the Portland retro-psych guitar fuzz jokesters. 3.2 million Americans, probably know this song as the theme song to the delightful "Veronica Mars" that has also featured some cool toons on the show, which probably stopped appearing when they got a full season pick up, because the rights to said cool songs would make the DVD impossible. The show twists the song into a cynical party shout out to all the people that maybe turned their backs on you in high school "We used to be friends/a long time ago/but I haven't thought of you lately at all...(falsetto) cmon now Honey/bring it on bring it on/yeah." Kind of like that 12th grade, f*ck you bastards, I'm shaking my booty on the way out of this joint.
In reality, the song is probably another Courtney Taylor-Taylor (their lead singer) special. He's basically a dick, who's a little (lot) self-absorbed, and the song is basically about, I'm this cool guy, and I just kind of forgot about your existence, which is the ultimate put down. Dick though he may be, these guys are a professional band, and notwithstanding their apparent subpar show at Lollapalooza, everytime I have seen them, they've put on a great show, a long show, and a professional show- they gave a shit, even if Courtney's attitude seemed otherwise. From their underrated more electronic-y, 80s-ish fourth album Welcome to the Monkey House. All albums are good, start with their second Dandy Warhols Come Down which features the stand outs "Be-In", their Neil Young jag-off "Minnesoter" and of course "Hard On (for Jesus)". WUTBF= 9/10, but Iggie, did we???

23 Lies-Death in Vegas

2005-08-01T00:43:00.000-07:00

One of their nice come-downy space trip floating female vocal ones. This should be the part where the heroine realizes she's been totally fucked over, but she's still in the grip of the bad guy, but the bad guy really is Tom Cruise, even though he's playing the good guy, cuz the movie is Ridley Scott's Legend. This is one of those times where I'm not conveying anything that I want to convey. The point is for you to waste 99 cents or 10 or zero and see what I mean. The only bad songs we talk about here are clear that they are bad and all the other ones are good. We're trying to expand your horizons people. Go ahead, expand ours. We will buy from iTunes the first 5 songs you commenters request, the dearest songs to your little hearts and review them right here.

The Fitted Shirt-Spoon

2005-07-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

Spoon didn't really start to sound like their mature sound until the excellent, but slow-to-grow-on, effort Girls Can Tell. The Fitted Shirt sounds like a direct continuation of the classic rock sound of the late 70s. It begins with a Led Zeppelin beat and is gruesome sounding. The prominent musical thought being "Finish her!". There's no good finish here. I don't want to know what they're getting at, to be honest. But the song is more sophisticated than that and the fitted shirt theme is introduced along with, of all things, a harpsichord sound. I think a normal person would like this song just because of the Zeppelin feel. I like it because it has harmonizing in the middle and truly sounds like Spoon and nothing else.

Heart +Soul-Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

2005-07-21T08:41:00.000-07:00

This is a song for having a romantic relationship hanging in the balance where you recognize the power of the other to do serious damage, while you hold out hope that they won’t. You are in that particular manic “up” phase where you have confidence that it all might work out at the very same time realizing shit is about to be f*cked up. This is before you put on the really aggro stuff or the Smiths. This is the song where it seems the protagonist is wavering between hope and despair, between confidence and insecurity. If the damage has already been done you just blast it thinking what might have been, waiting, wading through the driving fuzzed out guitar, tingling when the woo woo woo woos slide in at the 3:40-something mark to nail it down. Perfect song for the crappy movie you wish were really a music video because all the songs were good. From their decent second effort Take Them On, On Your Own.

Run-Snow Patrol

2005-07-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

Here's the truth. Snow Patrol is not all that great a band. They are too eager to work in Coldplay sound and sentimentality and the lead singer's voice doesn't make it near that orbital. Their big selling album Final Straw is fine. But like a 7/10 fine. Yet somehow, out of that comes this f*cking unbelievable song, Run.

Run sounds like what would happen if Grandaddy did an Elbow cover (interestingly, the song was featured on the Jason Lytle mix CD, Below the Radio. It is broad and sweeping. It leaves you feeling vulnerable, sad, and teary. I think the key is the repetitive nature of the instrumentation and the slow build up to a pretty decent emotional climax. Having heard these guys in concert, this is the song that makes me actually feel the music. I can listen to this song indefinitely and feel that tiny uneasy feeling in my stomach every time.

16 Military Wives-The Decemberists

2005-07-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Decemberists are one of the most original and fun pop groups out there. Their music is whimsical, poetic, and exuberant. So why not, of all the bands out there, write something political? This song is harshly cynical, but it's marked by the one of the most upbeat and catchy songs they've written. There are so many good parts in this songs: the horns, the la di da di da refrain, and the New Pornographers power pop arrangement. I also like the numbering of events. For example:

16 military wives
32 softly focussed brightly coloured eyes
17 company men of which 12 will make it back again

The other interesting part of the political message of the song is the complicity of the media with the foul and diseased US foreign actions. Nobody is spared in this song: celebrities, liberals, and everyone of us. Which is only fair.

Rhododendron-The Beta Band

2005-07-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

There are too few artists in the world that truly ripoff Brian Wilson. Everyone is influenced by his music, but the stuff they steal from him isn't what really in his heart. Beta Band is unafraid to play true homage in so many different songs from their last ever CD (sniff), Heroes to Zeroes. Rhododendron is really a continuation of Let's Go Away for a While, from Pet Sounds. I love the sentimentality of both songs and the unfearing use of percussion.

Beginning with a strange combination of mallet percussion (xylophone?) and weird high synthy instrument, Rhododendron forms a tight little canon with the bells, synth, and finally timpany. It's a quintessential Brian Wilson instrumental arrangement, highly reminiscent of the Holidays instrumental bootleg track from the old SMiLE sessions. I love this song and therefore Pinko will have objections.

good song for a bad day spent dealing with asshats.

2005-07-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

this should not need explanation. just read the lyrics, doi. it is from okkervil river's Black Sheep Boy the song is called "A Stone".

Hot breath, rough skin, warm laughs and smiling, the loveliest words whispered and meant - you like all these things. But, though you like all these things, you love a stone. You love a stone, because it’s smooth and it’s cold. And you’d love most to be told that it’s all your own. You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone - you love a stone. And I’m found too fast, called too fond of flames, and then I’m phoning my friends, and then I’m shouldering the blame, while you’re picking pebbles out of the drain, miles ago. You’re out singing songs, and I’m down shouting names at the flickerless screen, going fucking insane. Am I losing my cool, overstating my case? Well, baby, what can I say? You know I never claimed that I was a stone. And you love a stone. You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone - you love a stone. You love a stone, because it’s dark, and it’s old, and if it could start being alive you’d stop living alone. And I think I believe that, if stones could dream, they’d dream of being laid side-by-side, piece-by-piece, and turned into a castle for some towering queen they’re unable to know. And when that queen’s daughter came of age, I think she’d be lovely and stubborn and brave, and suitors would journey from kingdoms away to make themselves known. And I think that I know the bitter dismay of a lover who brought fresh bouquets every day when she turned him away to remember some knave who once gave just one rose, one day, years ago.

Emotional Rescue-The Rolling Stones

2005-07-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

I make no apologies for this song. I don't care if it is disco. I don't care if it is period of the Stones' that most would like to forget coming off the oh so very high hump (68-72) and a lot of hump it was. The song starts with some Charlie Watts' high hat and associated drumming, in slinks Bill Wyman. I'm not even sure if Keef is on this track. Anyway, first it sounds all romancy, then it sounds like Mick has one of his epic bouts of blue balls, I mean he is crying, crying over you and then of course, once success is in his sights as it will always be, he confidently comes to your emotional rescue, on his fine Arab charger, leaving, of course the sexual ravishment unstated, but definitely understood. Oh yeah, there's a little bit of Keef at the end. The falsetto f*cking kills. He's going to own you and he defines his sexual satisfaction as your emotinal rescue. Possibly one of their sleaziest songs, up there with "Monkey Man" and "Live with Me" but probably more a surreptitious "Under My Thumb." A f*cking plus, boys.

Battle of the Broken Hearts-Mojave 3

2005-07-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

This is one of the greatest songs I have ever heard. Now, I realize that every SotD post I write might sound like that, but please don't let it take anything away from how much I love this song, from the excellent CD Spoon and Rafter. There are so many things that make me love this song. I'll do my best to describe them:

First, the song has movements and dramatic tempo changes arranged into an A-B-C-A-B-C form. Basically, medium tempo, up-tempo, and then dramatic down-tempo heart-wrenching beautiful, before returning to the original form. I like the changes and each part affects me in a different way. With clearly C being the best part.

Second, the song begins with that Shins-like sound of ooohs from New Slang. Great beginning

Third, theremin introducing down-tempo. Nuff said.

Fourth are the lyrics in the middle of the song:

She said
no one wants you when you're broken
no one needs you when you're hurt
you can't love me 'cause I'm broken
you can't know me while I'm hurt
no one wants you when you're broken
they can't love you and it's sad

I mean dude, how can you possibly recover from that? (Ed. note, when we link to lyrics we attempt to link to band's official or unofficial pages, not the spyware cobags that archive all the song lyrics).

Fifth, voice plus mallet percussion singing the tune that sounds kind of like from A Day in the Life that you always have to sing along to. You know the part with the oooh ooh oohs. The part that is impossible to not hum along to because it is the most beautiful melody ever.

In the world of iTunes musical rankings, you have two ways to go for perfect songs. Either give them a 13/5 or something like that. Or you can add significant figures to the 5. For example, 5.0000. A better song would be 5.00000. I don't know the right way to do it, but I know that this is a song that brings up such dilemmas. Is that enough gushing?

Cornflake Girl-Tori Amos, Blue Skies-BT, Ziggy Stardust-Bauhaus, Duel-Propaganda, Any Lords of Acid

2005-07-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

Marcelo P. Camargo Edition-

Marcelo liked lots of kinds of music. Lots meaning even up to and including Celine Dion. His favorite artist was Tori Amos, to the point he was quite proud that he had all of her albums and singles, and many imports and bootlegs too. He definitely liked her music, but he also thought she was a total babe. It was probably her dark side that he liked. He was as mild mannered as anyone could be but he also like Goth tunes. I would ask if you like Tori at all to put your favorite Tori song and why in the comments, because it is something that Marcelo would appreciate.

I am choosing "Cornflake Girl" from Under the Pink for this post because, besides being the best song by Tori that I know, I believe it to be a poignant take on human isolation and the possibly shattering feeling of coming to a realization. "Never was a corn flake girl......This is not really happening/You bet your life it is." I'm sure it is not germane, but the lyrics are cryptic enough they are gonna damn well mean that.

Blue Skies is an empty, soaring techno track (if I used the wrong term go here and correct me) by BT featurind disembodied soaring vocals from Tori Amos that make you wish she did this more often. I think Marcelo liked this song and he would have loved it at the club.

He had a side that he didn't necessarily feel like showing all the time (especially in Mormonville USA)- he liked club music, especially goth and some industrial. We had a joke that this cute teller at our bank would someday say to Marcelo- (he was always chatty, and we talked about it because we worked near each other and I would see him on the way to the bank- he would ask me, do you know X? and I would say "yeah" and he would say "she's a cutie" and I would say "yeah")- anyway we joked that she would say to Marcelo "I just broke up with my fiancee." And Marcelo would say "I'm so sorry, what happened." And she would say "I told him that even though I seem nice and cute, I just want to wear black and be a Goth chick." He was surprised that I knew all the bands that he was talking about, we probably brought it up because I heard him playing something at his house, and was shocked that he liked it.

He loved Bauhaus, and I have chosen a Bauhaus cover of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust for this part of the post. Bauhaus is kind of like a particular flavor or offshoot of David Bowie. It could be because of their similar voices (Peter Murphy and David Bowie), but the dark side of glam always felt a little Gothy to me. I mean once you have the make-up on in your glam phase, how hard is it to put on too much eyeliner?

I have also chosen "Duel" by Propaganda. These early all digital pioneers were really like an electro-pop band fueled by the rich voice of Claudia Bruecken, but they basically sang about S & M stuff, kind of the female, less strutting, more confident version of early Depeche Mode. This song is about S & M- the chorus goes "the first cut won't hurt at all/the second only makes you wonder/the third will have you on your knees/you start bleeding I start screaming". Yet the music comes across as a less romantic OMD. I would also mention another Claudia Bruecken song here, from her work with the duo Act- "Absolutely Immune"- a song about rejecting the cares and slights of those around you, declaring in the chorus "I'm absolutely immune."

Finally, I have to mention Lords of Acid here. These techno-shock assholes are all about sex and disgusting you, with a stomping hardcore beat. I believe the correct term from Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music is "downtempo". Anyway we had a yard sale and Marcelo brought some CDs over to sell, that he just didn't listen to anymore. We joked about his Lords of Acid CD Voodoo U. The cover is very risque as you see below. It was tucked into a big pile of lots of other CDs. But as you would have it, some little kid was looking and of course, it is the most brightly colored one in the pile and pulls it out and is about to wave it around his mom. I remember launching myself across the yard to snatch it away before the child was forever scarred by this:
Marcelo, you are in our hearts.

2005-07-11T22:29:00.000-07:00

coupla things,,er songs rather. 1. track three from joanna newsom. yeah, i killed my dinner with karate too. 2. antony and the johnson's for today i am a boy. i wonder if the drag queens listen to this song as they are getting ready to work the weekend brunch shift at the place across the street called the bump and grind. they serve good food, can toss fake boobs across the restaurant to the other ones dress all the while singing and yelling. the way brunch should be served? 3. stepdaughter by califone for it was the first to come to mind reading about pinkopunko's neighbor.. i dont feel like explaining.

If You Fall-Azure Ray

2005-07-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

I first heard this song on Indie Pop Rocks on SOMA-FM, a fine internet radio station. It was one of those 'who are these guys and how did they write such an amazing song' moment. Which, upon getting proper confirmation from Pinko Punko that they were truly awesome, led me to the purchase of their CD Hold On Love. It's really not the best album overall, but to its credit, it has "If You Fall". It also has one other very good song, "These White Lights Will Bend to Blue". Good title.

The song begins with the kind of piano line and melody that lets you know right off the bat that this is going to be a fun poppy song. I don't mind that it appears to be about the ups and downs of the pursuit of love or what have you - it's not remotely whiny. The female voices are delightful and wonderfully harmonic. The song has a good beat. It's like a slow version of a Strokes song. It's also a perfect example of why any good song can be made better by adding piano. The song ends with a little strings flourish. What can I say, Azure Ray wrote a really damn cute song and I like it!

Tomorrow- Morrissey (teen angst series)

2005-07-10T00:32:00.000-07:00

So Morrissey haters, I hear you. He is an acquired taste. Morrissey, and his famous other band The Smiths, tend to have a couple of types of songs. Some, where the music kind of follows or fills in after his lead ("Last of the Famous International Playboys", "The Boy with the Thorn in His Side", others where the songs seem to have more drive- examples here would be "The Queen is Dead" and "Bigmouth Strikes Again" from The Queen is Dead, my personal fave Smiths album.

These songs that seem to have more impetus are the ones to listen to if you want to try to get Morrissey, however you already have to have somewhat of a bent toward romantic, English guitar angst. The production here is by the late Mick Ronson (from the album Your Arsenal) and he gave Moz a harder more reverby edge. Since this post is about if you were back in high school and just got dumped, hear his words...

Tomorrow, will it really come/
and if it does come/
will I still be human/
all I ask of you is the one thing that you'll never do/
would you put your arms around me...
I won't tell anybody

The awful thing about Moz is he'll turn around and destroy you in the next song for your patheticness, but you were only that pathetic to begin with because he described you so well in the previous one. Other songs I suggest as an intro besides the ones mentioned, "Panic" and "Paint a Vulgar Picture" (The Smiths) and "November Spawned a Monster", "Lucky Lisp", "Suedehead" and "Interesting Drug" (Morrissey solo stuff). Listen, I know, I used to hate him, but he is a lyrical genius and when surrounded by the right musical pieces he hits you right in your poor crumpled teenage heart. Remember when you were young and you cared ever so much about the little things?

The Popular-Splitsville

2005-07-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

Coming on from indiefied 70s reveling am pop balladeers/troubadours Splitsville, this song centers around a climbing chorus of "And I feel the pain of the pop-u-lar/I feel your pain" and you have a vague feeling of something biting and larger than the strummy stylings. Of course I just looked up the lyrics, and I don't know what the hell I am talking about. The song is both a warped joke and the dark side of a person's psyche. Completely at odds thematically, but musically absolutely cohesive, "Popular" is followed by a gorgeous, pining tribute to Brian Wilson called "The Lovesongs of B. Douglas Wilson" that ends:

Surf's up again...

The album of course is titled The Complete Pet Soul, which might give you a clue whence the band hails musically. 10/10 (even with the screwed up lyrics, don't worry you can't understand them anyway)

The Trapeze Swinger-Iron and Wine

2005-07-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

In Good Company was a pretty decent movie and featured surprisingly good ensemble acting. What also kept my attention throughout the movie was a very good soundtrack, prominently featuring the work of one of my favourite artists, Iron and Wine. Thus, the highlight of the movie for me was the previously unreleased Iron and Wine song played over the closing credits, "The Trapeze Swinger". This song is probably the only good reason to buy the movie's soundtrack. Realizing this, the evil people at iTunes made this the one track that couldn't be individually purchased. That might have something to do with the 9:29 length of the song, but I'm sure it's because of people like me.

The song itself is utterly crushing. It is the emotional equivalent of taking cyanide. Musically, this track nestles itself amongst the pieces of The Creek Drank the Cradle, most resembling the standout track, "Upward Over the Mountain". The song carries the same painful nostalgia, constantly asking the woman of the song to "remember me". In fact the poetry in the song is so beautiful that it is worth reading on its own here. The music of each stanza doesn't change very much, but it actually serves to increase the sense of longing and regret. I don't think it is remotely boring, and features a particularly lovely hymnal chorus in the background and beautiful sparse percussion. As the song progresses, it sounds like Sam Beam is joined by a female voice, but it's subtle and distant. Like his lost love. The last musical change near the end of the song is a series of rising and descending whole notes by what sounds like a subdued piano that takes the listener to the final abrupt ending.

Even though this song is probably my favourite Iron and Wine song, I would urge a new listener to begin with The Creek Drank the Cradle, and wait to embrace this song only after falling in love with Iron and Wine's delicate mastery.

Exciteable-Def Leppard

2005-07-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

Sitting around 2nd period, trig?, maybe third period drama. Bell rings half hour early. Oh yeah, there's an assembly today. They just come out of nowhere. What is it? Dance Concert. Dance Concert? I'll just sleep in the back. People shuffle in, maybe talk to one another. I just sat by myself, thinking I was going to go to sleep anyway. Lights go down, way down. Some figures, too dark to see thake their places onstage. A voice comes over the PA, some processed weirdness, "are you excitable?" What the?

Then the gyrating, high school flashdance chunk of cheesesteroid flattens the place while engendering salutes from the pubertationally competant. I can't say that I felt it was sexy per se. For 4.5 minutes, though, one became utterly convinced that the upcoming junior and senior years would be a runaway train of delightfully hedonistic debauchery, if one would only pay the nerd piper for one crappy year. Thanks, Def Leppard, and High School Dance Team. Thanks for filling my head with lies and deception. What seemed at the time to be a funk hammer statement of unbridled testosteration, was merely a Def Leppard preformed sh*t nugget designed for concert openers and toss off 6th singles. Thanks, c*ck teasers. Thanks for nothing.

10/10

Dark Road Window-Radar Brothers

2005-07-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

Radar Brothers are the kind of band that are unappreciated because people just haven't heard of them and music critics feel guilty about hyping bands that remind them of Pink Floyd. It's kind of inexcusable on both ends. Their music is typified by being slow, dreamy, and yearning. Former Medicine and Maids of Gravity member Jim Putnam's voice resembles Jason Lytle of Grandaddy (maybe-ed.), and any fan of one band is an obligate fan of the other. Dark Road Window is the standout track from their new CD, The Fallen Leaf Pages, yet is also probably the best song I've heard by Radar Brothers. Their previous CD, And the Surrounding Mountains, is one of the uniformly most solid CDs I own, but I would give up that entire CD just for this one song.

The track begins with a foreboding guitar line in tempo with the cymbals. Lyrically, it is dark. I suppose just like a dark road window. One quickly realizes that this is not Radar Brothers having a pleasant dream. While I can't actually hear all the lyrics, I pick up snippets like "golden creatures of the sea" and "makes the sky go black" and I realize that this is a fantastical nightmare. This explains the foreboding guitar and it's anxious melodic progression. However, the stars of this song are the overdubbed voices of Jim Putnam. The vocals pick up from the guitar and in one crazy Dark Side of the Moon moment simply emerge as their own instrument, sounding a haunting and taunting wordless lament. I will sleep tonight hearing that sound and know that the ancient dragons wait for me as well.

Surprise, Honeycomb-The Wrens

2005-07-05T12:01:00.000-07:00

Eclectic, risen from the grave New Jersey DIY basement rockers The Wrens reissued their almost invisible album Secaucus some years ago to absolute indie acclaim. For fans of messy, esoteric, raw rough gems of songs, Secaucus is not that indie album that can be recommended to anyone. It, however, contains the absolute best, haunting, cryptic, pop-rock song about a serial killer's spree (akin to Martin Sheen's in Badlands, but a more urban feel, and not the MTV of Natural Born Killers). I absolutely cannot do this song justice. It is a song that seems to have many different parts, but you cannot separate them in your mind, and when the song is over, it is gone like a puff of smoke, not in a forgettable way, but in an elusive way that you feel you need to recapture. I usually mention lyrics, because some songs I pay attention and some songs I never notice. I feel like "Surprise, Honeycomb" is a sort of tombstone elegy for sociopath.

Year Of The Dragon-Sufjan Stevens

2005-07-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

Sufjan Stevens has been gaining quite a lot of notoriety for his masterful folkie Americana suites about states (Greetings from Michigan, and the soon to be released Illinois). But this is the music he makes on too much drugs. Know Your Rabbit, the album this song is on, is a song cycle based on the Chinese calendar, and is largely electronicy and minimalist. Year of the dragon is probably the centrepiece of this cycle. Timed at 9:26, it is not the longest song, but it is probably the most grandiose and adventurous. The first half is highly reminiscent of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells". It is hypnotically repetitive and builds slowly with a few new synthesized instruments added in over time. At about the four minute mark the piece changes dramatically. Time becomes compressed and the bass starts to play more and more powerful descending chords. It is a stunning and moving moment. Just as the crescendo seems like it can't go any further, the entire song dissolves into a bleepy interlude and it starts to build and move in a different direction. The song finally ends with a Morse code series of beeps and then a short cacophony of fuzzy bass.

I really like this song a lot. It is probably the one song on the whole album that made me feel it was worth buying. I also think I like it for the same reason that I like "Tubular Bells". It has a well structured flow and keeps my attention throughout. I'm quite curious what inspired Sufjan to pick this particular song as "Year of the Dragon". Supposedly people born in the year of the dragon are healthy, energetic, excitable, short-tempered, and stubborn. This track, however, would probably be detestable to people with the above traits. Nevertheless, the track begins and ends like the roar of a dragon. 9/10.

Wrote for Luck-Happy Mondays

2005-07-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

This song off the Bummed album features the Manchester "baggy beat" but also has a feel closer to older bands like the Chameleons UK in its jangly, reverby guitar. This is not a song that reminds of their next album and commercial high point Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches. The Uncanny Canadian hates this song, but the insistence of the guitar riff layered with some chimey bits makes it feel like a Stone Roses hybrid (with that beat) and the ringing stuff from a song like The Chemical Brothers' "Sunshine Underground." A great song. The riff sounds like a jangly version of the same one that U2 probably borrowed from someone else for "The Fly". Bummed is out of print in the US I believe, but you can find it at used CD stores. If you really want to experience this song, avoid the recently released Happy Mondays US Singles compilation, as it has a truncated version.