dangermusic + dangerbooks

songs from the new OK Go album and the songs they more or less remind me of.

2010-05-10T11:45:00.004-04:00

Poolside

2009-09-02T15:19:00.004-04:00

For those of you who are looking for addicting reads that don't make you feel bad, here are two that I've just recommended to my friend Mike who's off to the Vegas poolside for the week.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. It's about a couple of kids in New York who make it big in comics in the mid-twentieth century. You've probably seen the bright and shiny, somewhat cheesy cover in the bookstores. I was actually turned off by the cover for a while, but glad I finally got over myself and took the plunge. The writing is great, the characters are well developed and fun, and the plot draws you right in.

Straight Man by Richard Russo is hands down the funniest book I have ever read. The opening scene is one of my all-time favorites. It's Russo at his best -- a bit of heartache and a lot of humor in a small, East Coast town.

A Count, A Dead Man, and Another Depressing Read

2009-08-27T13:06:00.008-04:00

It's been a quite a while since I've posted last - a thousand apologies to you (Matt), my one reader. Although there have been many books I've read since the fabulous 'Gone with the Wind', I will report here on three:

The first, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, totally rocked. The second, Epitaph of a Small Winner by Machado de Assis, was very funny. And the third, She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, was devastatingly depressing.

'The Count' was a sweet, heart-breaking, engrossing adventure. It really doesn't get much better than this one if you're craving chocolate but don't want to experience acute nausea following ingestion.

'Epitaph' was another jewel recommended by Dozier. Its narrator is a hilarious, dead man. The first third of the book is a somewhat rambling series of vignettes on his early life. As the book progresses, though, a delicate love story develops. I'd never heard of de Assis - he's a Brazilian writer from the late 1800's ('Epitaph' was published in 1880). I found the book remarkably modern considering how early it was written - I would never have guessed it's from way back then. Not sure if I'm being overly influenced by the back of book (I curse the backs of books!) which makes this point, but the book's use of time, love stories, and characters bordering on the fabulous are reminiscent of Garcia Marquez and Borges.

And finally, 'She's Come Undone'. I sucked it down in less than a week, so clearly it was good in a sense. But the heroine of the book got knocked down again, and again, and again, and again, and.... thank the good lord that's over. I shed a tear at the (somewhat) upbeat ending.

CoverMania

2009-03-12T23:41:00.005-04:00

Whew, it's been a little while.

Another covers post for ya, with a solid dose of Neil Young and a side order of Pixies. First off, one of my favorite Neil Young tunes, "Down By The River," covered by Buddy Miles (who was the drummer in Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys). This is the version from his funktastic 1970 album Them Changes, which is only available today as a fairly expensive import CD, so this is a vinyl rip from the album I picked up for $6 recently. (vinyl lives! yeah right, what a pain.)

And for a more somnolent, nearly 10-minute take on the same song, we go next to a collaboration between Low and the Dirty Three, from their In the Fishtank session.

To continue the Neil Young thread, we go next to "Winterlong," a song I heard first as covered by the Pixies. It also appeared on Young's 1977 compilation Decade and was recorded by the Pixies for the 1989 Neil Young tribute album The Bridge.

That wouldn't be the last tribue album the Pixies contributed to. After their reunion in 2004, they recorded "Ain't That Pretty At All" for the Warren Zevon tribute album Enjoy Every Sandwich. If you know the name Warren Zevon at all (I didn't), it's probably as the man behind "Werewolves of London" (oddly enough, played by Adam Sandler on the tribute album). For the full story, see his Wikipedia page, but suffice it to say he was a highly gifted songwriter (with a fantastic dark sense of humor and a drug problem - song titles include "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," and "Lawyers Guns and Money") and I highly recommend checking him out. "Ain't That Pretty At All" first appeared on the 1982 album The Envoy, but it's also included on the WZ compilation (I guess the term "greatest hits" wouldn't really apply) A Quiet Normal Life. Again, I highly recommend.

The Pixies have of course been around well long enough to be covered themselves, and this little gem recently came to my attention: TV On The Radio bravely covering "Mr. Grieves" a capella, on their Young Liars EP. The original of course appeared on the seminal Doolittle, and if you don't have that then I don't know, just... just go away and come back when you've had it on repeat for a week.

Well, that does it for this week. I close with "Hey Joe" because at least thematically, it brings us back around to "Down By The River," although it's not quite perfect since it's pre-Band of Gypsys and thus... no Buddy Miles! Oh well, next time we'll aim for a perfect circle of covers...

Clipped Moustache, Smouldering Eyes

2009-02-20T09:45:00.003-05:00

Read Gone With the Wind over the holidays, on the beach. It had momements of greatness (yes, when Rhet and Scarlett went head to head); the raised relief cover was especially awesome; but, it was so sooo loooonggg - got a bit boring at times. It did, however, whet my appetite for historical novels/PBS shows about reconstruction, which I know horribly little about. Recommend/don't recommend? On balance, I say go for it.

Dark End of the Street

2009-01-21T22:10:00.000-05:00

At the end of the bonus disc that comes with the extended version of the Elvis Costello album The Delivery Man, I was pleasantly surprised to find a short but sweet version of this classic ballad.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters - Dark End of the Street

Originally recorded by James Carr, Dark End of the Street has been covered many times, some better than others. In my humble opinion, the unusual phrasing of the chord progression that helps set this song apart is obscured by renditions that are too slow (e.g. Ry Cooder) or arrangements too ornate (Aretha). In contrast, the version I've been hooked on lately strips it down to what really makes it a classic: those chords, and of course the lyrics. And it helps that the subject matter works so well as a country song.

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Dark End of the Street

One more version I just happen to have on the hard drive.

Percy Sledge - Dark End of the Street

Off the top of my head, there aren't too many pop songs sung from the perspective of the adulterer. Your bonus mp3 for today is an old blues number of just that sort. Quite a bit more lighthearted, variously attributed as traditional or, frequently, to John Lee Hooker, and sung here by R.L. Burnside on his album Acoustic Stories.

R.L. Burnside - Meet Me in the Bottom

Protest music past and present

2009-01-16T15:46:00.000-05:00

Only a few days left to follow through on this...

Impeach the President, 1973, by The Honeydrippers.

Impeach the President, 2006, from the DJ Green Lantern mix Alive on Arrival.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Graphic Novel & Mysteries

2008-12-19T13:39:00.008-05:00

Read Watchmen for bookclub. It was ok. My first, and probably last, graphic novel. The illustrations were pretty cool and allowed (obviously) for more show and less tell. As a newbie with graphic novels, though, I found them almost distracting. The characters were uniformly unlikable. I can imagine how, within the genre of the graphic novel, this might be considered great - but I was dissapointed, and didn't enjoy the read. oh well.

Followed up Watchmen with my first Ruth Rendell, The Face of Trespass (but don't get it at Amazon, go to any used book store - you're bound to find millions of hers). It was totally solid. The writing was fine, the story was intriguing, one of those mysteries where the crime doesn't happen until the end. Very suspenseful. I just started another of hers (No More Dying Then), and it's all sun and roses so far. I love mysteries! Especially those by female Brits! Dorothy Sayers is one of my favorites...any recommendations? I've already read most of Agatha Christie, PD James, Elizabeth George, Conan Doyle, Dick Francis, Carl Hiassen. There must be more I'm not thinking of - tried spots of Jonathan Dickinson Carr, John le Carre, Georges Simenon, Raymond Chandler. One of my favorite mysteries of all time, although I don't even really put it in the mystery bucket when I think of it, is The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. It was a recent discovery, and combines several exceedingly appealing (to me) elements: mystery, the exotic, the British back in the day, straightforward writing, plot, character development, and length. So so good.

Parts and Labor new album

2008-12-18T23:01:00.006-05:00

Parts and Labor have a great new album out, Receivers, and I'm already hooked. Like 99.9% of all bands, they continue to mellow with age.* Of course, "mellow" is a relative term. When you start out where Parts and Labor did, it means there's still, thankfully, plenty here to scare the shit out of whichever overhyped and overbearded midwestern or Canadian neo-folkie you're currently digging.

You can stream the whole album from their website, and if you like it, pick up a cd/lp from Brah Records, or Jagjaguwar (home to some of the aforementioned bearded folkies).

On a related note, our friends (and P&L labelmates) Pterodactyl have a new album in the works as well. I'll be mentioning this again when it comes out in the spring, but in the meantime you can hear a sample on their website.

*a thesis I hope to expand on in a future post. in the meantime, I challenge anyone to show me a counter-example.

"H. M., an Unforgettable Amnesiac, Dies at 82 - Obituary - NYTimes.com"

2008-12-05T13:49:00.002-05:00

Virtually anyone who has ever taken a course or read basic texts on neuroscience will have heard about H.M. and his profound amnesia. The historical timing of his tragic case, which this obit evokes so well, ensured that he would enter a small pantheon of case studies (Phineas Gage being his closest rival) whose symptoms provided essential insights in the progress of modern neuroscience.

On a side note, it’s hard to think of a field other than medicine in which non-practitioners can unwittingly become celebrated for the progress they enable. It’s not like Gallileo ever dropped stuff out the window in Pisa by accident.

Depressing

2008-11-26T11:42:00.003-05:00

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. Don't be fooled by the delightful cover.

Invisible Cities

2008-11-12T22:34:00.003-05:00

Another great read from my awesome book club: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Truth be told, I've had a number of Calvino books gathering dust on my bookshelves for years. It all started with If On A Winter's Night A Traveler, which I picked up roughly a decade ago and got stalled on about the fifth page. After that, there were gifts of Calvino, I tried If On A Winter's Night at least another couple of times, but to no avail. In fact, until a couple of weeks ago, there were at least five Calvino books in my/my husband's possession, neither of us had read any of them, and they did not include Invisible Cities, so I had to purchase another Calvino for book club. ARG! However, I'm really happy I did, and I'm glad my book club ladies provided me with the motivation to get through the first several pages.

Now how about I discuss the book? It's a series of vignettes about fantastical cities that Marco Polo tells to the emperor Kublai Khan. There is no plot, not a whole lot of character development - so why did I like it?? The vignettes themselves are quite lovely and often depressing in their resemblance to real life. The tone is pretty heavy, philosophical. It took me exactly 91 pages to really get into in. It was the chapter "Cities & Eyes 4" that really drew me in. This vignette describes a city that appears wonderful and unique to a newcomer but grows dull and monotonous over time; only the travelers appreciate the city because they are the only ones who actually look around them. Okay, writing it out, it sounds a bit trite - but the vignette itself is quite moving. It was the first one to really resonate with me, and then I loved all the rest. Basically, it was a lot like reading poetry - only easier because there was some kind of a story/structure -- also there were full sentences!

Thriller, Short Stories, Thriller

2008-10-14T17:24:00.007-04:00

Woops – been away for a while, but I have several books to report on. I’ve read three since I last posted. They are:

“Ex Libris” by Ross King (literary historical thriller, mediocre)
“Dangerous Laughter” by Steven Millhauser (mysterious short stories, intriguing and good)
“Pattern Recognition” by William Gibson (cyber-uber materialistic thriller, good)

Can you tell I’m looking for some escape in my bedtime reading these days? Not going to spend a lot of time on “Ex-Libris” – it was okay, not the worst one of its kind I’ve read but certainly not the best (that designation would go to “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, which was awesome).

“Dangerous Laughter” was a nice change of pace for me as I don’t often pick up books of short stories these days. The recommendation came from the same friend who recommended “The Outlander” (thanks Dozier!), and though not as great as that, the stories were very different/creative and refreshing. The author – Steven Millhauser – wrote the novel on which the movie “The Illusionist” was based, which might give you some sense of what the stories were like. The writing is lucid; its combination with the subject matter is often startling, as the subjects are strange and surreal. Some of the stories’ central ideas are particularly fun to think about: not talking again for the rest of your life or the idea of a machine that produces touch (the sense) much as television produces vision. In some of the stories, Millhauser has a talent for disguising the absurdity of his central theme until you’re solidly into the story; it’s a jarring but fun effect. My favorite of the stories was probably the last one – “The Wizard of West Orange.”

And finally, “Pattern Recognition,” another inhalation read. Good plot, definitely scores high on the addiction measure. Gibson’s writing style is hip and modern. Although it was written in 2003 and depends heavily on cyber/modern sci-fi themes, it still feels fresh today. I haven’t read a lot of novels that often reference 9/11 (actually only one – “Emperor’s Children” by Claire Messud, which was fine), as Gibson does here; I thought it was quite well done. The most intriguing part of the novel, for me, was how Gibson hammered home the materialistic nature of his heroine. She works in advertising, is generally likable. The descriptions of her interaction with the external world are fascinating and sometime hilarious in the commentary they offer on our brand-permeated lives. At first, I found these descriptions exhausting and slightly irritating – I think I was probably taking it personally/judging the character. Before long, though, I got used to it and came to appreciate it (and I think Gibson toned it down after the character was sufficiently built and the plot came more into focus).

Bob Dylan versus...

2008-09-25T10:00:00.009-04:00

I. Dan Bern

Dan Bern's been compared to Bob Dylan ad nauseum, and it's obvious why. I've been a huge fan of Bern's from the first time I heard him though (once I realized it wasn't Dylan), and once you get to know Bern's songs, the similarity quickly fades into the background.

The similarity is certainly nowhere more in your face, though, than in "Talkin' Alien Abduction Blues," which is clearly an homage/pastiche/rip-off of Dylan's "Talkin' World War III Blues" from the classic album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Bern's take on Dylan's satire of Cold War paranoia (make what you will of Bern's choice of modern parallel for the '60s fear of nuclear annihilation) appears on Bern's first release, the 1996 Dog Boy Van EP. I like to think Bern saw the endless Dylan comparisons coming, and simply decided to get this one out of the way right off the bat. These are fun to listen to back to back.

Dan Bern - Talkin' Alien Abduction Blues
Bob Dylan - Talkin' World War III Blues (youtube)

II. PJ Harvey

I was re-listening to PJ Harvey's great early album Rid Of Me and re-discovered her cover of "Highway 61 Revisited," which frankly I'd never really paid attention to before. I think I've become more obsessed with covers in recent years.

Anyway, not much to say about this cover except that it's a lot of fun, and certainly strays far enough from the sound of the original to escape the common cover pitfall of just being a bad copy.

PJ Harvey - Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (youtube)

N.B.: This post is in no way inspired by or in reference to James Taylor's new album of cover songs, cleverly entitled Covers, which is just lame. James Taylor is lame.

A or B: 80s tech

2008-09-19T14:26:00.005-04:00

Which one is (was) more ridiculous?

A.

B.

I mean, it was the 80s after all and just look at the way that guy's looking at his watch. He's clearly very important and time is money and Gordon Gecko and so on.

On the other hand, was it so necessary to get your Golden Girls and your Perfect Strangers that you had to take up a significant part of your lawn with that Goldeneye-style dish?

Beck: Modern Guilt (and thoughts on going mp3-legit)

2008-09-16T12:14:00.010-04:00

I finally broke down and made my first legal digital music purchase yesterday. Don't worry, I'm still a cheapskate: Amazon had Beck's new album, Modern Guilt, on sale for $5, so I just went for it. I could have easily found it elsewhere for, uh, around $0, but I still tend to buy stuff I like on cd, usually by seeking it out used or online, which is still as cheap or cheaper than a digital album from iTunes or Amazon. And it's Beck, so I very much expect to like it, and there's no way I was going to find the new Beck cd for $5, even used. Oddly, though, I think there was another factor that contributed to this spur-of-the-moment decision: the album's boring cover. Cover art and album packaging are still something I like a lot about physical music formats. In this case, however, the cover is really not compelling at all (I sort of agree with this guy). (The third factor was the DRM-free mp3 format, which meant zero hassle buying at work and transferring to home for the ipod, or anywhere else.)

So, the album? I'm giving it a first listen as I write this, and my initial impression is that it's most similar to the Beck of Sea Change and Mutations, but with more production, as you would expect from a collaboration with Danger Mouse. More Guero-style beats, bleeps and boops, but mixed together with that introspective mood and the acoustic guitar hearkening back to the very early One Foot in the Grave. Beck is amazing. He has a set of styles that he likes to use, and is very good with, and almost every album mixes them together in slightly different proportions. The result is often a sound that seems totally new and unique, and like something that only he could pull off. And it's always held together by his unmistakable lyrics and voice. Modern Guilt, I suspect, will grow on me much as Guero did, sneaking up on me until I find myself in the car some day, singing along every word to a song that I didn't realize I knew so well.

----------------
Now playing: Beck - Gamma Ray
via FoxyTunes

Hi + a great read

2008-09-02T21:44:00.010-04:00

I'm pretty sure no one but Matt and I read this, but just in case: I'm Letitia/Tish and I will now be contributing book rec's/rants and other miscellany to this blog. Hi!

The great read promised above is "The Outlander" by Gil Adamson. When forced to choose between plot/character development and prose I usually go for the former, but with "The Outlander" you don't have to choose. It's a dazzling read, and easily inhaled it in a few short days. Set in the West - although it's never clear if it's Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, or Canada (Alberta or Saskatchewan?? I just had to look those up - somewhere above Montana..) - it's about a woman who murdered her husband and is fleeing from her scary, red-headed, eerily twin-like brothers-in-law. There's a whole cast of memorable, eccentric characters reminiscent of the recent HBO series Carnivale. The pace is thumping, and Adamson creates a haunting picture of the widow's - as well as other character's - emotional state. And perhaps best of all, her visual descriptions are gorgeous and lingering. Overall , totally great. Probably the best book I've read in a year.

mp3 news

2008-09-01T10:45:00.001-04:00

Hello!

Sadly, all the old mp3 links are dead (file storage service mediamax went bye bye).

Here's a random 7" I ripped using Garageband, to hold you over.

Maybe I'll scan the cover for you some time. If you leave a comment.

brief rant re: pretentious hipster record reviews

2008-08-29T01:38:00.003-04:00

Memo to the editors at Dusted (and Pitchfork and all the rest of you): for those of us not "in the know," i.e. those that actually might be looking to the record review for information or analysis rather than with a pre-existing opinion, the following sentence might be better positioned at the beginning of the review, rather than in the last paragraph:

"Only a couple of the record’s 10 tracks are actual songs."

Well, that's good to know. Thanks for the tip-off!

summer mix tape

2008-08-07T19:08:00.005-04:00

The RIAA strikes back.

~~A rock/pop mix "tape" thrown together for your summery listening pleasure. Some stuff you know and love, and a few more tracks that you probably haven't heard. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!~~

Ender's Game is here.

2008-07-31T10:52:00.004-04:00

Read this story at Slate and/or listen to the story at NPR. No exaggeration here: the kicker premise of Orson Scott Card's classic science fiction novel Ender's Game is now completely possible.

In a nutshell, Raytheon hired video game developers to redesign the command and control systems for military drone aircraft. The result is a video game-like system that on the one hand, further isolates the operator from the very real death and destruction on the other side of the world, and on the other hand, makes the system intuitively easy to use, particularly for a generation of young people raised on incredibly realistic video games. It's impressive, and terrifying. The reporter's 7-year-old son watched the demo with him, and said, "It was really cool."

"Therefore, there are patterns, everywhere in nature."

2008-06-26T18:25:00.002-04:00

simply cool

2008-05-31T11:22:00.001-04:00

David Byrne connected an organ to a huge building.... This is just very very cool.

via flux=rad

these kids today and their not-math rock

2008-05-23T00:42:00.003-04:00

According to the oracle¹, "math rock" is a style of rock music characterized by "complex, atypical rhythmic structures" and "asymmetrical time signatures." I don't love the term, but it's there, and it actually does fit. But I've been noticing it getting a lot of use lately, and none of the bands it's being applied to these days, as far as I can tell, ever stray from 4/4 time. It seems some of the other qualities that commonly went along with the weird time signatures, such as "angular" melodies (whatthefuckever that means), or "strident" vocals, or simply a lack of vocals at all, are enough these days to qualify for the genre. Battles, Les Savy Fav, and Foals are examples that come to mind, along with what I think of as "new prog" bands like Explosions in the Sky. (How much better Mogwai were than Explosions will ever be is another post.) These bands get labeled math rock because they sound a little weird, I guess.

I guess that's my only point. I'm just getting a little Andy Rooney on the indie rock scene. Heh.

Real, good math rock: Jetpack, Don Caballero, June of 44, Rodan...

¹On a side note, a Yale undergraduate I mentored this year, who is now going on to one of the top medical schools in the country, cited Wikipedia more than all other sources combined in her final term paper, and then complained about getting a B+ in the course. Yeah.

Parts and Labor

2008-05-07T20:22:00.007-04:00

Vision of Repair and Brighter Days, from Mapmaker

Changing of the Guard, from Stay Afraid

Anything that, when it comes through on shuffle at work, causes my colleagues concern for my sanity is well worth posting about. Friends and labelmates^1,2,3 of Pterodactyl, Parts and Labor definitely make even more noise. My favorite tracks of theirs, especially from Mapmaker, not only have great energy but put great lyrics sung to catchy melodies over the earthquake-at-45rpm foundation. (Yes, a foundation that is like an earthquake. It works.)

For more samples and a video of a performance of Changing of the Guard, click through:

www.partsandlabor.net

JAGJAGUWAR records

new heights for nerd rap

2008-05-06T15:19:00.004-04:00

The Economist really is an excellent publication.

In regards to their unbiased news coverage, might I propose that non-party people put your hands in the air and wave them just like you do not care? Or like you care but don't let it influence your news coverage?

Via the FP blog.

testing disqus

2008-04-21T10:47:00.001-04:00

1 2 3

don't trust the news...

2008-04-20T14:24:00.001-04:00

...the military-industrial complex is alive and well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html

have you heard the huge white guy with a big red beard version?

2008-02-25T12:07:00.001-05:00

try to make it all the way to the polaroid part...

Nina Simone and a fantastic sample

2008-02-07T23:18:00.000-05:00

A "sampler and sampled" post.

Talib Kweli - Get By (Quality)

Nina Simone - Sinnerman (Anthology)

And let me just say that the Nina Simone Anthology is a fantastic collection that should not be missed. Check out a selection here.

Yahoo! Media Player

2008-02-06T12:27:00.000-05:00

We've now adorned ourselves with the Yahoo! Media Player, which plays mp3s linked on this page in a handy flash player at the lower left corner. Just to test it out, here are a few random tracks.

MC5 - Gotta Keep Movin' (High Time)
The Rock of Travolta - Keep Them All Afraid and They'll Consume (Silver Rocket SR50) (pop quiz: name that sample!)
Juno - You Are the Beautiful Conductor of This Orchestra (A Future Lived in Past Tense)

And suddenly it hit me...

2008-01-22T19:55:00.000-05:00

Separated at birth?

never have i ever UPDATED WITH SUPPORTING FOOTAGE

2007-12-10T22:58:00.000-05:00

Never have I ever in my life seen a more ludicrous television program than CSI Miami. That show brings "over the top" to a whole new level.

I blame Belle & Sebastian

2007-11-28T01:48:00.000-05:00

Just for you, Serge, some babbling I jotted down a couple weeks ago and never finished, or edited. But better than nothing, right?

(Incidentally, most New Yorker content is now available on their website without subscription.)

Sasha Frere-Jones' recent article in the New Yorker about indie rock's lost soul is mostly spot-on, despite the usual music critic pretensions. And he makes some interesting connections (or tries to) between the splintering of pop music and the post-civil rights, p.c.-era "new segregation" or whatever you want to call it. But there is one thing I'd love to chime in on, strictly on the musical side of the discussion. Let me be totally blunt.

I blame Belle & Sebastian.

Sasha puts a lot of blame on Pavement and their early-90s ilk for the cerebral, back-beatless tendencies of present-day "indie" rock, but at least (and never mind here that I was a huge fan) at least they had energy, and yes, emotion. Sure, the lyrics were nonsense, but the tone of voice made clear what it really meant that you were a cigar stand, and I, a blue incandescent guillotine. And as the 90s wore on, at least we had some bands - I'm thinking mostly of the "math-rock" genre now, and specifically the more raw style of Unwound, rather than the too-carefully orchestrated sound of Don Caballero - some bands that despite their inscrutable vocals and downright alienating music, were LOUD for chrissakes. We also had the early Weezer, the early Radiohead, the Foo Fighters, bands that may have had no "soul" in the motown sense but had clearly recognizable emotions in their lyrics and their driving, urgent music. Then I guess two things happened. First (and here's where we blame the Scots, of all people): Belle and Sebastian, at least for me, ushered in the wimpification of indie rock. Where's the fucking distortion pedal!?!? Where's the ENERGY? I guess it probably started long before, with the Smiths or the Cure or whoever, but all of a sudden indie rock was goddamn BORING. Lullabies, for crying out loud!

Sorry, end of rant. (Also, what about punk, Sasha? The Sex Pistols lost their soul long before Pavement ever did.)

In honesty, I guess I sort of stopped paying attention for a few years there, so I might have missed some good indie ROCK (as opposed to INDIE rock - Stella, anyone?). But now that I've started paying attention again, I see the second event, and this gets back (finally) to what Sasha's talking about. When the indie kids wanted to put the soul back in, they couldn't figure it out. Arcade Fire are great, but Sasha's friend hit the nail on the head when (s)he asked, "Do they play every song in this end-of-the-world style?" Akron/Family and the neo-folk stuff are another great example of white hipsters trying to sound soulful, this time by using lots of voices in harmony (and then freaking out for twelve boring minutes). The other manifestation is the Killers/Franz Ferdinand/eighteen million other bands, who just want to make the disco of this decade. (It's straight dance music, right?) The Hold Steady are good, but that's because he actually IS Bruce Springsteen (at least that's my pet conspiracy theory), and the garage rock revival was a fine flash in the pan, but really just a rehash (nothing there the Monks didn't do better 40 - yes, 40 - years ago, and that REALLY includes the White Stripes, sorry). The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are lots of fun. They may have something there, actually. (Is Karen O. a 21st century Janis Joplin? Is that possible without the black music influence?)

The new indie ROCK may have some great songwriters, and some great performers even. But rock and roll had soul. And at least the mid-90s indie rock had something else, even if it was just noisily expressed angst. (Emo was the too-whiny dead end of the angsty branch of indie rock. I suppose you could call Weezer "proto-emo.") The new indie rock needs to find a way to express something that feels real, rather than like calculated emotion or, even worse, just plain calculated.

A Heartbreak Showdown

2007-09-11T17:49:00.000-04:00

And now it's time for a showdown!
It Should Have Been Me - Gladys Knight and the Pips
versus
All I Could Do Was Cry - Etta James
Two great songs with a common theme. Vote in the comments.

Miscellaneous Musical Musings:

- Reason #141 to get around to ripping some vinyl: Deodato - Very Together (1976). Side two features not only I Shot the Sherrif and the Theme from Star Trek, but best of all the wonderfully named track Univac Loves You, on which one Rubens Bassini is credited with playing "Holiday Inn room keys."

- I recieved my Cake: B-sides and Rarities CD in the mail today. If you're a Cake fan, I think you have to have it. Preview and order it here.

- The R&B/soul binge continues. Check out the Lost In Tyme blog. I highly recommend Lorraine Ellison - Stay With Me (1969), especially her version of Try, and the scorcher You Don't Know Nothing About Love.

----------------
Now playing: Nina Simone - To Be Young Gifted And Black
via FoxyTunes

Beware the neocon encore

2007-09-07T11:55:00.000-04:00

Read this blog, (especially posts 1, 2, 3) by Barnett R. Rubin, and keep an eye out for a reprise of the same arguments that got us into Iraq five years ago. This is madness.

Stax documentary on PBS

2007-08-03T17:18:00.000-04:00

I was very lucky the other night to catch by chance Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story on PBS. The traditional montage of interviews, vintage footage, and (minimal) narration by Samuel L. Jackson served very well, as the music, and even more so the old concert footage, stand strong all on their own. I'm considering ordering the DVD, because I'd easily watch this several more times. So many great moments, from concert performances by Otis Redding, or the Staple Singers, or Sam and Dave on the European tour of '67; to Jesse Jackson in a dashiki raising his fist to a crowd of 100,000 in Watts, before introducing Isaac Hayes; to the old session player explaining that Stax at its height replaced cotton as the biggest industry in Memphis, Tennessee. Check your local listings, as this is a musical and cultural treat not to be missed. Not to mention the simple fact that the classic rise-and-fall storyline puts any hair band Behind the Music episode to shame. (See: auctioning off of Isaac Hayes' custom gold plated Cadillac to skeptical white southern businessmen.)

What, no opening band to warm up the crowd?

2007-07-04T18:36:00.000-04:00

When I first heard about the "Live Earth" concept, of concerts on all seven continents on 07/07/07, I swear it was the first thought into my head: who the hell's going to play on Antarctica in the middle of winter?! Bono may just be that committed/conceited, but I'm pretty sure the rest of U2 would finally balk. (Although the Edge already has his winter hat on; maybe he's good to go...)

So who do you get for a gig too extreme even for rock stars? The only people more badass than rock stars of course: scientists! We're not talking about these posers either, we're talking actual nerds, far geekier than any horn-rimmed-glasses faux-dweeb record store clerk. Their name is Nunatak, and they earned the gig by having more satellite bandwidth than the other research stations (who also apparently have resident bands). Take that, Fossil Bluff Forward Logistics Facility! Read all about it at Nature News, and if that link doesn't work for you here's a pdf version.

YouTube post.

2007-07-04T15:40:00.001-04:00

I don't even want to think about how many hours went into this.

As for music, you can listen to the new Smashing Pumpkins album at AOL. I am pleasantly surprised at both the rockingness of the album and the minimum hassle installing yet another plugin, from AOL no less. Perhaps they have grown less evil of late?

pterodactyl, in color

2007-06-20T20:06:00.000-04:00

pterodactyl have made a fun fun "music video."

Animal Collective?

2007-06-10T12:04:00.000-04:00

Animal Collective "rarities" are here. Found via SeeqPod (which is like Hype Machine but better).

Do you guys like Animal Collective? I'm giving them a second chance, and suspect they may grow on me. Alternatively, I may get bored quickly and leave like I did before the end of the Akron Family show.

I'm getting bored...

SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search

a political aside

2007-06-09T09:49:00.000-04:00

"When he was approached near the House floor by a reporter, Mr. Young responded with an obscene gesture."
NY Times, 7 June 2007

Rep. Don Young (R-AL) may be trying to set a record for longest-distance pork. NY Times article here. Key funny bit:

Asked in a telephone interview who had organized the fund-raiser, Mr. Mazurkiewicz, the consultant, said he was then at another fund-raiser with a member of Mr. Mack’s staff who would know.

“Aronoff,” the staff member told Mr. Mazurkiewicz, within earshot of his mobile phone.

“Just some local businessmen,” Mr. Mazurkiewicz said into the phone.

Pterodactyl are a band!

2007-06-06T20:18:00.000-04:00

So, my friend's pterodactyl-- ha ha... that would be cool to have a pet pterodactyl.

Pterodactyl have released their first full-length album! Yay! Check out the review at the ever-ridiculous Pitchfork, or read something that actually describes the music in words instead of in band names at a place called Dusted. Pitchfork has a couple of tracks up for listening and the band has more mp3s scattered around their site. Warning: many people possibly including your neighbors or your girlfriend will not like this music. Some people just can't handle the rock and roll.

the best band you never heard of.

2007-05-17T16:38:00.000-04:00

Seriously.

Jetpack were a band in Providence in the late 90s. They released one 7" single called Investigator Man (on clear vinyl with accompanying comic book), and one self-titled full-length cd, on their short-lived label Sampson Recordings. I saw them play a few times, including opening for Don Caballero and on their own at the very hip AS220. Then they lost their drummer, and the remaining two guys became Hya Kcha, playing drums and bass-with-many-pedals. I also have a two-track cd of Hya Kcha's, cleverly titled "A Demonstration," which I will happily dig out and share if anyone's interested.

But back to the point: the self-titled Jetpack cd is one of my top 10, maybe top 5 favorite albums of all time and ever, bar none, and I absolutely pull it out and listen to it with much regularness. Simply put, it ROCKS. To be a little more descriptive, this is very much in the Math Rock vein, with off-kilter syncopations and odd-length phrasings and so on, but with a firm emphasis on the Rock part as well. To contrast, I never got into Don Caballero that much because their stuff can be too focused on the math part, and end up feeling almost clinical. Unwound, one of my other very favorite bands, might be a better comparison except that Jetpack is less dark and grungy/metally (metallic?). Not that Jetpack would ever jam, heavens no. Every riff is repeated exactly as many times as necessary for you to get your head around it, and then the song moves on. The volume or tempo shifts in that way that I love, building and falling and building again so you can barely sit still, like good early Mogwai but without the feedback, if that makes any sense. And I almost forgot to mention - these guys were fucking tight as tupperware. Unbelievable.

Okay, enough talk. No guilt about sharing these tracks since the guys have made them available on the Sampson site, and I'm sure the cd is essentially impossible to buy. (The Jetpack on Amazon is a different one.) So get the tracks from them, or over at Multiply, or zipped up, and let me know what you think.

turntable music

2007-04-25T01:03:00.000-04:00

The very decent music blog debaser recently posted a link to a large (3 cds) and apparently rare collection of turntable wizardry from Ninjatune, called Xen Cuts. The label's tenth anniversary compilation, from 2000, includes tracks from Kid Koala, Z-Trip, Coldcut, and DJ Food (subject of an upcoming post), along with many others. If you like turntable music or, even better, aren't a fan yet and want a good sampling of some of the best the genre has to offer, definitely grab this while you can.

Xen Cuts, from Ninjatune.

Stranger Than Fiction soundtrack

2007-04-23T23:53:00.000-04:00

Apologies to all three of my readers (LALOL!) for the extended absence.

We finally saw Stranger Than Fiction this weekend. In addition to being a really super duper movie, it's one of those films that makes great use of an excellent pop music soundtrack. Coincidently, considering I'll be seeing them at Toad's this very Thursday night (all right!), the soundtrack was compiled by Britt Daniel and Brian Reitzell of Spoon, and includes instrumental sections written by them in addition to several Spoon songs, including one previously unreleased (The Book I Write).

Grab it here. Enjoy!

lazy post

2007-03-27T19:49:00.000-04:00

i'm busy. just to fill the void:

via here.

and I'm listening to rjd2.

Last.fm is quite okay.

2007-03-15T19:36:00.000-04:00

Last.fm stations can now pop out to a separate window, or be embedded elsewhere. Are you underwhelmed?

Bands similar to The Crownhate Ruin:

Music tagged with "mash-up":

Geek note: blogger complains about the sloppy html provided by last.fm, so you have to add </embed> right before </object> for it to work.

must! buy! music!

2007-03-12T22:55:00.001-04:00

My recent bender continued at CD Spins on Newbury St. this weekend. More in keeping with my usual habits, I managed to pick out 5 used cds for $30. The highlights were definitely the Rodan cd (Rusty, their only album, which I've been looking for for a while), and June of 44's Tropics and Meridians, which is in a similar vein (not surprisingly).

Jungle Jim - Rodan (Rusty)
June Leaf - June of 44 (Tropics and Meridians)

I also came across the second cd from Creeper Lagoon, which on first listen is pretty similar to, if a little less adventurous than (i.e. more radio-friendly, i.e. crappier than) their first album. Nonetheless a decent find for $6, and for the special place they hold in my heart from years ago.

Chance of a Lifetime - Creeper Lagoon (Take Back the Universe and Give Me Yesterday)

Then I found a single called Bang the Drum by Railroad Jerk, a mid-90s Matador band. I had one cassette of theirs in high school, and one track of theirs appears on the What's Up Matador compilation that I have. I'm no big fan or anything, but I had to buy it just to hear this cover.

Why Don't We Do It In The Road - Railroad Jerk

To top it off, my order from Dischord - Fugazi, The Argument cd and Furniture 7" - was waiting for me in the mailbox when I got back Monday morning. I feel like Cookie Monster these days. MUUUUUZIIIIIC!!! RA RA RA RA RA!!!!!

I promise more computer-web-music related stuff, as soon as I find the time. Preview: Musicast is asking for money, but still works great. Streampad is busted, but there are other options I hope to try out soon.

Forget Cassettes - The Catch cd single

2007-03-09T15:48:00.000-05:00

New Royalty Rates Would End Internet Radio

2007-03-06T16:04:00.000-05:00

If you like Last.fm, Pandora, Finetune, or any of the other streaming music services, you may soon be out of luck, as newly announced royalty rates would likely put them out of business. Interestingly, this could end up indirectly hurting the merger bid of satellite radio providers Sirius and XM, who argued the merger wouldn't create a monopoly in part because they were competing against internet radio as well as traditional radio.

Rather than regurgitate, I direct you to the following sources:

Consumer Affairs has an article, as does the LA Times. The latter points out in passing that this will put a huge damper on the diversity of music available to listen to online (obviously).

The Radio and Internet Newsletter has details in this post among others.
A legal perspective.
Save Internet Radio
Musick in the Head blog (more informative links)

2 other places to hang out on teh internets

2007-03-04T12:35:00.000-05:00

I've been spending a little time at a couple of other sites lately. First, multiply.com is a community site that makes it really easy to share music & photos, keep a blog/journal, etc. It amazingly offers unlimited storage of your mp3s and everything else, which you can upload and organize into playlists. Then other users (everyone, or just your contacts) can listen and comment. My new page is here.

The other new (to me) hangout is Rate Your Music (RYM). I've been looking around for an easy and useful way to catalog my physical music collection (cds and vinyl). RYM is like a wiki for music, in that anyone can add or edit information on artists and albums. Plus, you can write reviews, rate albums, and most importantly, register which releases you own, and on what format. It looks like there are other features that could be cool, but that I haven't looked into yet, like compatibility with other users' ratings, etc. (Presumably like last.fm's neighbors.) If you want to see what I've entered so far from my collection (definitely a skewed sample), my user page is here.

If anyone has other suggestions on ways to catalog my music collection, please let me know. Delicious Library of course looks awesome, but I don't have an isight or barcode scanner and a lot of my vinyl albums don't even have bar codes anyway. Plus it costs money.

pick (podcast?) of the week

2007-02-28T20:11:00.000-05:00

The Contrast Podcast is based on a cool idea. Each week, a theme is announced, and anyone is invited to pick a song based on the theme, record themselves giving a little introduction to the song, and send the intro and song in. The submissions are compiled on a first-come, first-included basis into a ~1 hour set for the week's episode. The handful of episodes I've listened to so far are somewhat hit and miss (songs by actors, for example, can range from somewhat funny to truly painful), but a good theme turns up some pretty cool stuff. My favorite so far is episode 45, My Favorite 45.

Next week's theme will be Why? (They've already apparently done who, what, when, and where.) So for kicks I typed "why" in my itunes search box. Check out what popped up.

a vinyl find

2007-02-26T20:04:00.000-05:00

Big record store find this weekend! For ten bucks at Looney Tunes on Boylston St., in Boston:

Pixies - Velouria 12" single, promo copy!

Side A: Velouria, Make Believe

Side B: I've Been Waiting For You, The Thing

Years ago, I found the Gigantic and Alec Eiffel 12" singles within a relatively short time, the first at In Your Ear in Providence and the second I think somewhere in NY. I got excited at the thought of a budding Pixies vinyl collection, and ever after kept one eye out in every record store I visited. But this is the first one I've ever found since then, so it really made my day.

You can buy the Pixies "Complete B-Sides" collection at Amazon.

The Monks

2007-02-21T20:20:00.000-05:00

The Monks - Black Monk Time

I don't remember how I came across this album, but I remember on the first listen being amazed that it was made as long ago as 1966 (same year as Pet Sounds and Revolver). I love this description (from here):

The one astounding album of proto punk/abrasive psych genius from the Monks! The album's wild organ washes, primitive drums and guitar, and harsh, bizarre vocal rants prefigured everything from the Stooges, to Rocket From The Tombs, to the more predictable punk stuff that arrived 18 years later. Outrageous and incredible!

I was sure that was meant to say Rocket From The Crypt, but no! Rocket From The Tombs, I subsequently learn, was a short-lived band that spawned Pere Ubu.

Wikipedia, as usual, has plenty more on The Monks. They were American G.I.'s stationed together in Germany. Interesting!

Marginally related trivia of the day: What band outsold the Beatles two to one in 1966, winning 4 Grammys and setting a Guinness Book world record with 5 albums simultaneously on Billboard's Pop Album chart? The answer's in the comments.

pick of the week

2007-02-19T16:49:00.001-05:00

Check out the Kleptones' podcast, Hectic City. They usually do mixes and mash-ups, but the latest edition is just a great set of British 60's garage rock.

Stay tuned for more 60's proto-punk from The Monks.

Tom Waits

2007-02-16T21:11:00.000-05:00

Musicast seems not to be able to deal with the aac format of the ripped Forget Cassettes album. So instead I put Tom Waits' recent 3-cd release Orphans on the player. I listened to most of it today, and Bottom of the World is a great song. Seems like everyone's either a lover or a hater when it comes to Tom. Which are you?

There are so many cool pictures of this guy. I used to have this one taped to the side of my computer in college. It was ripped out of Rolling Stone (I think) and on the other side was a picture of Brad Pitt in a shiny sparkly alien outfit.

some very good rock and roll music

2007-02-07T20:13:00.000-05:00

I don't buy many new cds, but I just ordered several direct from Theory 8 records. I received Forget Cassettes' new album Salt for Christmas, and have been loving it. (I'll put it up in the streampad player soon.) Then today I was listening to their Theory 8 label-mates Apollo Up!, on their website, and they rock very much as well. So then I ended up at the Theory 8 site and just broke down and ordered a bunch of cds from both bands, plus one by The Sincerity Guild (check them out at purevolume or, sorry, myspace).

I'm going to try and completely avoid describing or reviewing bands here, since there's way too much of that clogging the tubes already. Besides, I think you get way more from 3 minutes listening to a song on a band's website than you get from reading Pitchfork. So there it is: I recommend these bands, and if you check them out I'd love to hear what you think. That's what the comments are for.

I have to stick this in here: here's a pandora station based on these bands.

Isn't this fun?

intro

2007-01-31T01:24:00.000-05:00

this is just a rough list off the top of my head, but it gives you, the dangermusic blog early adopter, an idea of what i might post on, if i ever post.

the big news for now is combining itunes, ~~musicast~~, and streampad to bring you the embedded player on the left, streaming a playlist from my home computer. (if it doesn't work at the moment, my computer's asleep.)

streampad is still getting the bugs worked out, but this was all very easy to set up. the only new thing i learned was how to forward ports through my airport base station. more on all these in later posts (maybe).

itunes
~~musicast~~
streampad

other stuff:

hype machine: music blog aggregator
pandora: custom internet radio
pandora stations: other people's custom internet radio
foxytunes: firefox music player ~~extension~~ add-on

itunes signature maker
ourmedia
(to make and host, respectively, the audio clip on my blogger profile.)

picasa web albums:

From dangermusicblog