Sunday, November 30, 2008

CAN'T U FEEL DA KNIFE

i had to spell it like that on the top, i'm so sorry. i had to do it.

everyone wants to cover grizzly bear's KNIFE. everyone. i was confused as to why it was so widely adored. THEN I LISTENED TO IT. i must say 'holy shit, i am an idiot.' seriously, it is awesome.
if you have not heard it, you should get on that:
KNIFE --- GRIZZLY BEAR
it's so haunting. jesus.
here are some covers:
BY CSS
BY BORN RUFFIANS
BY ZACH CONDON WHILE INTOXICATED

and here it is by the band themselves for LA BLOGOTHEQUE.

for good measure, seriously one of the most awesome things i have ever heard:
TOO LITTLE TOO LATE (JOJO COVER) --- DAN ROSSEN OF GRIZZLY BEAR.
best part: this sounds like a legitimate song, except when dan says "i don't stand a chance with a player like you." the rest of it could have legitimately been released by grizzly bear on an actual record. this makes the fact that it is a jojo cover even more incredible.

i would like to see grizzly bear in an opera house in brooklyn with the brooklyn philharmonic orchestra this february. how incredible would that be.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

FOG


"Please note that repeated violations to our Terms of Service may result in further remedial action taken against your Blogger account." --- direct quote from hilarious email i recieved

FOG --- MASON PROPER.
gorgeous, soft. you want to tell all these stories in whispers, we can't hear you. it doesn't sound as good if you talk louder.

---

this is a moody post, i just realized! if you're upset now and pondering the imminent shutdown of this blog by "The Man" (i am sure this will not actually happen as really only my friends read this baby and i didn't even get a note from the dreaded web sheriff, who hilariously demanded an extensive apology from grizzly bear when we did the same thing, posting 'brother sport.' by the way if you still want that let me know!) THEN YOU SHOULD WATCH THIS VIDEO AND FEEL BETTER. were you able to follow that sentence after the parenthetical aside?
CHICK LIT --- WE ARE SCIENTISTS.
this is one of my favorite songs off brain thrust mastery. these guys make great videos. i will reiterate that you should really buy with love and squalor right now, because that is seriously top twenty material for me. what a solid album that is. i'm working on a review but let me just tell you that show was great.
also in case you didn't believe me a while ago, here's video proof that EZRA KOENIG COVERED BLITZ WITH FUCKED UP. that should also make you happy. i was near tears with joy while watching it last night.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

O HAI

look what i found...
THE NEW FLESH --- RA RA RIOT. from a super-early EP with dying is fine and can you tell. instrumental. very good.



i'll give you a review of we are scientists when i can. right now, just go buy with love and squalor before i smack you upside the face.

Friday, November 21, 2008

THIS POST HAS NO POINT



i saw twilight today. what a ridiculous film. then i stumbled across THIS ARTICLE and nearly died. then, to add insult to injury, i stumbled across THIS ARTICLE. all i have to say is "wat." twilight hints: all the sepia-toned parts are terrible. robert pattinson's eyebrows are second to few. vampire weekend hints: tonight at 12:35 on conan o'brien, and they start a short tour on dec. 1, and they will start recording a second album in january.

tomorrow's my eighteenth birthday and i'm going to see we are scientists, so i'll let you know how that pans out. i'm going to start giving you my BEST OF THA YEAR lists in the middle of december... they're gonna be sweet. don't even try to deny it.

i am posting though because finally i found on the internet one of my favorite spoon songs, and i don't think i've posted it here before. it's hilarious. it's verifiably hilarious.
ALL THE NEGATIVES HAVE BEEN DESTROYED --- SPOON
here's a very clean and somewhat less badass version of the first track on my favorite album of all time...
THE BEAST AND DRAGON ADORED --- SPOON

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

BROTHER SPORT


this has got me so excited!
i got BROTHER SPORT, from ANIMAL COLLECTIVE'S soon-to-be-released merriweather post pavillion. HOWEVER i have decided to take it down because whenever i see it on another blog there is a huge 6-paragraph nasty message in the comments, and i hate negative vibes. if you would like it, please email me and i will do what i can.
bits of it were leaked last night but taken down before i could listen. how incredible does this song sound, though? i love that beginning, piano, chanting. then the fuzz from the background. little synth sound. open up your, open up your, open up your throat. let all of that time, all of that time, all of that time go. i forget i love this band until they show me something like this. i remember when i first heard peacebone. i downloaded it then remembered i had it that night as i was lying in bed (this was two summers ago). i put it on. i remember the light from my ipod lit up the ceiling. how the beat comes together, solidifies. something out of nothing. then, at the end, nothing out of something. really incredible. i am getting excited for this album.

Monday, November 17, 2008

UPTIGHT

well, i just applied to do this. let's see how it goes. i wrote a nice email about how i went to a billion concerts in the pouring rain last summer (you guys remember that? good times!)

but i thought i would do an actual post though, so i realized this today:
up⋅tight
   /ˈʌpˈtaɪt/ [uhp-tahyt]
adjective Slang.
1. tense, nervous, or jittery.
2. annoyed or angry.
3. stiffly conventional in manner or attitudes.

let's talk about this word and its appearances in music. i think it's important that we talk about spoon first because britt daniel uses the word UPTIGHT in two songs i can think of right off the top of my head, and for some reason i think there are more, or i might have it confused with "ignite" which he also uses at least five times.
i can't find an mp3, but WANTED TO BE YOUR is worth listening to at some point in your young life, partially because it's ridiculous and makes little sense. it is good though. "i wanted. to be your friend. i thought. when you danced it looked alright. BUT THAT DIDN'T MEAN I WASN'T.... UPTIGHT!!!" what?
also SMALL STAKES. this is live; the original's on kill the moonlight (buy this if you haven't). i think that small stakes is one of spoon's better songs. "small stakes bring you where you're caught in a rut. you feel so uptight you just want to throw it all up."
i also think that the VIBES (i don't know why i'm using this word) of a lot of spoon songs convey that energy - uptight. tense. nervous. "i'm tense and nervous and i can't relax." (these are talking heads lyrics but the vibes translate!!) i think the best example of this is I TURN MY CAMERA ON. really tense, really shaky. but then when we get into songs like THE UNDERDOG you can't say that at all - there's this total swap. that's really appealing. there's a lot of talent in that.

the most well-known use of the word UPTIGHT in a song in 'modern' (this song is ten years old, though!) music would be radiohead's SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK ALIEN... "they'd shut me away, but i'd be alright. i'm alright. i'm just uptight." what does this mean, really? surely if you were uptight and they locked you away you'd get worse. what a gorgeous song, though! i always thought this song really sounded like what it was about. that guitar / synth thing was so extraterrestrial --- all that about alien abduction --- but the chorus is just gorgeous, soaring, which really goes along with "show me the world as i'd love to see it..." what a great song that is.

Friday, November 14, 2008

GIRL TALK.


olivia finally burned it for me and oh maaahhh god. the album cover reminds me of the video for BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE. in music related news, i almost died when that synth riff from in between days came in and was followed immediately by crank that solja boy (sp?). also the heavy breathing from time of the season + since u been gone!??!??!?! oh my god. as rachel zoe would say "i die."

edit:
PUMP IT UP + SHAWTY LO. (*#@$()@#*)$#@#$)&#%&#!%!_%($~!!!!!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

IF THE WASTING OF YOUR TIME WASN'T QUITE SO UNFORGIVING


i couldn't edit this to read "omg vampire weekend." were that change made, i would BE this lolcat.

i am seeing vampire weekend for the third time three weeks from tonight. guh. i don't know how i am going to wait three weeks especially considering it will be twice in that week that i will see them and they will probably have some new songs to play and they will probably play ladies of cambridge which is SO GOOD LIVE, SO GOOD. my friends hear about this too much but: june 14 they played it just after m79, throughout which it was raining lightly. ezra played the first chord of ladies of cambridge with rostam and that keyboard just syncopated, perfectly, the bass and the drums, and it started to POUR. it was cathartic. every kind of tense i had ever felt went away. that's when i stopped caring about all my shit getting wet and i remember, kind of, yelling "take! it! take! it!," and me and my brother and simone just went crazy dancing soaking wet, and then with that big long quiet section, and everyone was so silent, and in those little pauses before chris brings it back with the drums all you could hear was the rain and this little feedback fuzz and when ezra took a breath to sing something you took a breath to say nothing, just because you had to breathe and you'd forgotten until he reminded you. and i remember after "but for you i could put it to rest," i didn't think they would finish the song. there was this total stillness, it was haunting and somewhat terrifying given the nature of the song, the almost suicidal drive of it. i wasn't sure what was going to happen. most of us were completely silent. and then "buuuuut IF YOU LEAVE I JUST DON'T THINK I COULD TAKE IT!!!!!" absolutely incredible. first this division, this distance. then this total collective insanity!

um, i've been surviving thanks to sam / this song which i managed to play on monday nonstop throughout the following:
attending three and a half classes at school, walking to the train station, taking the train to the city, taking the subway to columbia / 116 st, struggling to eat a giant linzer cookie, walking around the campus at barnard attempting to find the admissions office, leaving barnard after my interview, on the subway back to grand central, running for the train, getting on the wrong train, sitting next to a middle-aged dude reading twilight whilst listening to prince, taking the wrong train to the wrong station.
DUPPY CONQUEROR --- SAM BUCK ROSEN.
i love sam. i have a funny story to tell about sam, but i'll save this for when i finally get GET THE MOTION, which is an incredible song, and which i should get soon to give to you. my musican friend anthony (who may soon record an album of christmas carols with booty-droppin' beats featuring some other cool guys) remarked on the "groove" of this song. there is really a groove to it. the first little stanza of lyrics is quite good, too. i can't get over his voice. i've tried to describe it too many times and have failed miserably each time.


because i was just speaking about VW and don't want to make a whole other post about them which is too much even for me, here's them covering classic belgian punk gem, plastic bertrand's "ca plane pour moi," en paris a few days ago...
CA PLANE POUR MOI --- VAMPIRE WEEKEND
it's a bit difficult to understand because it was just recorded on someone's camera. that's okay. you can understand that it was pretty exciting.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

FOR BARNARD COLLEGE



they asked me about a habit or tradition, something i do every day. i thought a bit and this is what came to me. i'm going to just give you a little excerpt:

Almost every day I listen to a song called A Manner to Act. I don't know of very many songs that are more beautiful than this one. There is a lot of depth to it; there are very many levels - drums, guitar, bass, voice, violin, cello. What is interesting is that it doesn't mean much to me as a person. The lyrics are lovely but I don't feel they have any real application to my life. I can't sing or play any instruments besides the oboe so I can't consider it inspiring to me as a musician. It wasn't playing at any momentous occasions in my life. I listen to it because I love how it sounds and I love every wandering and dizzying second of it.


A MANNER TO ACT --- RA RA RIOT. i always take a deep breath at that beginning, and then another when the violin theme comes in. there is definitely something almost creepily affecting about this song.

Friday, November 7, 2008

CONTINUATION

"...we are now in the midst of building a new record. It's called 'Vision Revision' and it will be yours as soon as we have worked out just what it is that we are trying to show you."
--- aih

YES.



ps. i got sent a NASTILY WORDED EMAIL about COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. i'll still try to put songs up for you, but maybe only one from each band and then some recommendations. it is really important to support music in whatever way you can! try not to steal if you can help it.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

I LOVE ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI

today i came home from school early because it hurt when i moved. i am sick. i feel lingeringly like shit. i am extremely pale. this does not matter. today is the best day of my life. ]
1. barack obama is president.
2. i'm seeing the teenagers open for vampire weekend at terminal 5. after THIS breathtaking womanzier remix, i am super excited.
3. TRIUMPHANT RETURN OF MY FAVORITE BAND EVER:


(cameron was cruelly cut out of this picture)

it is still verifiable to call aih my favorite band, all you SKEPTICS AND HATERZ, because i haven't reacted to anything like i just reacted to this since i discovered born ruffians were opening for vampire weekend at summerstage. i seriously freaked out and put my hands over my face and could not move to download the song for at least one minute, wherein i was paralyzed with ecstasy. i am near tears right now.

THAT BEEP --- ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI
(not to be confused with my favorite pussycat dolls song)

there are no words for how happy this band continue to make me with every song they release and everything they do. this song is so wonderful.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

SHY SHY SHY


i really love lykke li even though my dad and i had a discussion about her and he said she sounded like an 'immature jazz singer.' i think she has a lot of talent though. but today this interesting comparison came up...

does this:
DANCE DANCE DANCE --- LYKKE LI
remind anyone else of this:
THE ONLY LIVING BOY IN NEW YORK --- SIMON AND GARFUNKEL


it's nothing bad obviously because i love both songs. i think it's that little afro-beat thing at the end.

Monday, November 3, 2008

PLEASE BE SMART TOMORROW



THE GHOST OF YOU LINGERS (DEMO) --- SPOON
& if you were here would you calm me down or settle the score? on the northeast corridor i first heard this song, on amtrack on the coast of rhode island, it was midsummer and the train moving very fast, this blur of sunset and ocean. at the time i had the ap bio text on my lap and i was supposed to be outlining things, defining things, understanding things but i didn't care because i had this, this song with all that power --- so devastating in that smooth echo, that thud of sound, exhausting --- and i had to my left the ocean spread out, the beach. once five or six kids sitting on top of a railroad bridge, skinny legs dangling. i didn't know if they would jump off or if they would just sit there and watch the sun go, but you never know what people will do when you see them only so quick, that division of a second before the train goes back into the forest.