REALLY AMAZING

THIS MODERN LOVE

happy halloween!

JAMZ OF LATE PART III

1. I'M GOOD I'M GONE (LYKKE LI COVER) --- FRIENDLY FIRES. really like this band as of late. they put a nice spin on this song.

2. GALLERY PIECE --- OF MONTREAL. i'm not the biggest OM fan but this song really appeals to me to such a huge extent. i love that riff and the chant and they way it comes in and goes out. the lyrics are so hilarious and weird and sexy. "i wanna crash your car. i wanna scratch your cheeks. i wanna make you sick." what?

3. PATIENT PATIENT --- MORNING BENDERS. sweet, slow, nice drums and guitar, this great little vocal thing toward the end.

4. DESEO --- SAM BUCK ROSEN. i would be hard pressed to find any recent jamz with as much power as the first minute or so of this song, with that little guitar dip, those random backing instruments. humorously i believe this tune is named after a j-lo fragrance.

BLIND ME WITH YOUR HEAAAAAT

OF COURSE pitchfork gave deerhunter a 9.2. why i even bothered to scroll down to 'best new music' to find out if it was there is beyond me. OF COURSE IT WAS. for the record this is the same score they gave no age's NOUNS earlier this year. i predict right now that these, in some order, will be the top albums of the year. just you wait and see.

this is deerhunter's only good song.
HAZEL ST. --- DEERHUNTER
you'll like it if you like fuzz and moodiness. i like it because, to some extent, i can appreciate fuzz and moodiness, and there is this great vision i always have when listening to it of a gigantic hazy desert a la there will be blood and no country for old men, although this makes no sense based on many of the lyrics, and i saw both those films long after i first heard the song.

DOWNLOAD THIS NOW PLEASE

i didn't like FRIENDLY FIRES until i heard this song five minutes ago. all i can say is OH MY GOODNESS.
ON BOARD --- FRIENDLY FIRES.

i read this fantastic interview with bradford cox of deerhunter wherein he was talking about how noise for him is like sexuality for most people. i still don't understand this analogy but i like this idea. that being said, it is common sense that music can be really, really sexy but there are few bands that can carry this through without sounding sleazy. i am not saying that friendly fires are one of these bands. this song is especially sleazy: check out ed macfarlane, who is an attractive guy, kind of moaning "don't stop" at 1:16. but sleazy is not necessarily bad, and like bonde do role, who i linked to above, and we are wolves, who we talked about last night, friendly fires do this sleaze very well. god, when can i get down to this?

after some more listening i have decided that it is also in your best interest to listen to PHOTOBOOTH and IN THE HOSPITAL. both are really sexy in this jittery, nervous way (the best way!).

I AIN'T NO LITTLE BIRD

this came up on shuffle and i forgot how much i love it:
LITTLE BIRDS --- WE ARE WOLVES

don't have the words for this song --- really sexy, but all their stuff is sexy, and it isn't sexy in an orthodox way. shivery and fuzzy and dirty, with this pulse like a heartbeat. that chorus is so ridiculous and nonsensical but when you really think about it: "oh baby baby, i ain't no little bird!" but you can't put this song in a wicker cage, "yellow red and blue. yeah girl you know it's true." there's that mythical creature - i remember reading this fantasy book, as a child - that rusts iron cages, so you can't keep it in a box. i think this song is like that. very hungry, very wild.


/

also i found this really old ra ra riot lounge act from 2006, before john pike (their former drummer) died in 2007. it's absolutely incredible. ghost under rocks is the first song, but it's here titled 'fever' and the verses are really different, although the words to the chorus are the same. this is really intriguing to me because even with different words and a different title this is a devastating and incredibly intense song. i'm into everest right now and almost dying because it is so incredible. it's all grouped together and the songs aren't separated so i'm just going to give you the whole file right here:
LIVE ON WOXY.COM, 2006 --- RA RA RIOT. with ghost under rocks, everest, each year, can you tell, dying is fine, hounds of love, two interviews.
not to be confused with LIVE ON WOXY.COM, JANUARY 2008

FOR THE LOLZ

if you were curious, my top played list on itunes. it's verifiably hilarious. if you sort by artist it becomes devastatingly evident who my favorite bands are. i'm pretty sure every song vampire weekend have recorded is on there.

BEHOLD!!!

note some ridiculousness: #12 and #18 are the same song. #4 and #46 are the same song. #1 is #1 by over 100 plays (at roughly 2.25 minutes, i've played it almost 300 times, which means i've listened to it for eleven hours and fifteen minutes. i try to stress that i am usually doing other things at the time.) i haven't listened to #30 for almost a year. #8 and #9 have basically the same play count because i don't want either one to "win" because i like them equally.

TWO HEADED BOY

jeff randomly showed up saturday night in pittsburgh and played a neutral milk hotel song, "engine," with julian koster, making saturday night the first time any two members of nmh have played together in ten years. coincidentally, in the aeroplane over the sea was ten years old a bit earlier this year.
PROOF

one of the most beautiful things in the world:
HOLLAND 1945 --- NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL

WHAT DO I KNOW

PULL UP THE ROOTS (TALKING HEADS COVER) --- MORNING BENDERS
i love this. chris chu's voice is so much prettier than david byrne's but somehow he still manages to hold onto the utter creepiness of this song.

they did A WHOLE BUNCH of covers actually, and you can download them all. there's some fleetwood, some smiths, some paul simon.

i have such a crush on this band.

OH CAN YOU TELL

this picture stolen off flickr. i was in the front row and standing directly in front of rebecca, who plays the violin, and dances wonderfully in giant heels. unfortunately due to the thursday-ness of this show and the subsequent fact that i had to leave in time to catch the 12:06 train, i only managed to see half of their set which, devastatingly, included EVEREST, one of my favorite songs ever. i left directly after suspended in gaffa (they swapped this with can you tell), which i think was an appropriate goodbye, as it is incredible. behold the terribly depressing closeness of everest to suspended in gaffa! TWO SONGS!!! AHHHH!!!!!
let me just reiterate that i love ra ra riot and that they are incredible and if you don't own both THE EP and THE RHUMB LINE to purchase both, IMMEDIATELY.

CAN YOU TELL, on letterman. this is great because they get so much happier and more comfortable as it goes on, and wes's voice is AMAZING. still, really, youtube does them no justice.

there were two opening bands, walter meego, who i didn't like, and the morning benders, who i liked very much. they had a very charismatic frontman who wore the same cardigan i had worn earlier that day.
here's a song:
WAITING FOR A WAR --- THE MORNING BENDERS.
i also really like BOARDED DOORS.
i bought their album and i have been listening to it. i like best the stuff with the piano!

NEW SPOON THING

IN THE RIGHT PLACE THE RIGHT TIME --- SPOON

never heard this before. it might be new, or very old. really simple --- like who backs your money! it's got that groove to it, though, you know. what really separated spoon's don't you evah from the original version by the natural history was, while both songs were equally good, spoon's version had this ridiculous, undeniable energy to it, this pulsating thing like a distant galaxy, pushing and shoving with light, here and there and all over.

DYING IS FINE(BUT DEATH

the title of this post has THREE MEANINGS! my mother and i were sick last week and watched two-three hours of kimora: the fabulous life and the rachel zoe project. i was especially inspired by zoe's ridiculous phrases including "i die" for just about everything. also the other day on the radio i heard that song with that terrible title, "i just died (in your arms tonight)" (or is it "(i just died) in your arms tonight"?) also i'm seeing ra ra riot tomorrow and know all the words to their fantastic fantastic dying is fine as well as most of the words to the e.e. cummings poem it's based on.
ANYWAY...

1. I JUST DIED (IN A BAD WAY):
ELVIS COSTELLO SINGS ON NEW FALL OUT BOY SONG.
i'm not even going to delve into how much this breaks my heart.

2. I JUST DIED (OF JEALOUSY):
i don't really 100% love this band called fucked up (seriously, that's the name of the band). i am, however, ridiculously awed by the apparent hystericallity / total awesomeness of this FREE 12 HOUR LONG SHOW they played last night in the bowery, which, of course, i did not attend, because it was a school night. i must confess that looking at pictures and things of these kinds of shows gets my blood boiling a little and gets me thirsting for the time in eighth and ninth grade that i was all up on the scene (which, in westchester, is obviously not so awesome). even more depressing is the fact that apparently it was full of people i would consider famous. plus, look at that girl's outfit. i die, of sadness. the village voice almost made me cry a second ago.

3. I JUST DIED (OF AWESOME):
SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT (NIRVANA COVER, BUT IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW THIS WHY AM I ASSOCIATING WITH YOU, EVEN INDIRECTLY, OVER THE INTERNET?????) --- OF MONTREAL + ANDREW, OF MGMT

4. I JUST DIED (BECAUSE NO ONE CAN COME TO RA RA RIOT WITH ME TOMORROW):
i will probably be going BY MYSELF or with my musician friend, ANTHONY. so we'll see. it will be ridiculously awesome. i've never seen ra ra riot in an actual 'concert setting' before, so it remains to be seen just how ridiculously awesome it will be, but as of now i have enough faith in them that i know, without doubt or concern, that they will blow my mind (lighters in da air!)

CAPTAIN AHAB

it was only a year ago that i didn't know any guys named ezra. it was only last week that i only knew one guy named ezra. now i know two. i think everyone should know two.


this is ezra furman!
his voice is less pretty than ezra koenig's but is equally appealing and equally intense --- in a really different way, though. you'll get it when you listen.

you'll like this song:
WE SHOULD FIGHT --- EZRA FURMAN AND THE HARPOONS
MYSPACE
they just released an album called 'inside the human body.' (all of these things remind me of moby dick which is why the title of this post is captain ahab). anyway, i think you would like most of it especially "take off your sunglasses" which pretty much just sums up why i wear sunglasses all the time. "the sun is blinding!" i've got sensitive eyes! only ezra understands me!

ANDREW BIRD

i wrote this about andrew on october 2 for my school paper and thought you might enjoy it as well.



Andrew Bird has a voice like warm honey and it comes at me through four gramophone-style horns, standing straight-backed to his left and right. At his feet are four pedals, five, concealed by amplifiers, and on each of these he records and replays pieces of things, divisions of songs, violin (two parts), whistling, clapping, guitar. He steps back and forth in a square like he is dancing with someone I can't see. With his eyes closed he shakes his head.
First he plays one song, wordless. He records one piece at a time and loops it seamlessly. He takes off his shoes. At the end he says "Hi, I'm Andrew." We know! He tells us how beautiful Tarrytown is - we know this too, but we like to hear it from someone else. He plays a few older songs. One is called 'Plasticities.' The chorus is "We'll fight, we'll fight for your music halls." Andrew Bird says later "It looks like someone fought, here." I'd been wondering if he would say anything about that line. Above the stage there is a mural of mountains and a river and marshlands, there are two little chandeliers, dimmed, the ceiling is recently repaired and incredibly ornate.
Andrew Bird says his album is complete as of today (it's called Noble Beast and will be released January 27). In honor of this he plays three or four new songs for us. Each of these is lovely in a classic and dizzying way. He tells little stories between them. He tries to explain the inspiration for each but I feel that few of us understand what he's trying to say. I do, and this might be all that matters.
He plays an old song called 'Skin Is, My.' He tells us "It's been a while since I played this." It's hard to believe these confessions of weakness when they come from him. All these songs are perfect, in a shocking kind of way, divided and combined, looped in this infinite circle, this beautiful thing however old or new. At the end Andrew plays 'Weather Systems' and carries his shoes offstage with a curt wave and beaming smile. The lights come back up. I keep wondering who fought for this place.


for la blogotheque, a while ago

NO ONE DOES IT LIKE YOU

appreciate DEPARTMENT OF EAGLES for their soft and somewhat haunting music over your long weekend. i really like IN EAR PARK and NO ONE DOES IT LIKE YOU.
edit: you're going to have to WATCH IT ON CONAN for me because i don't know how to work the computer i am currently on. i can't really wrap my head around the glory that is no one does it like you.

totally unrelated, i'm going to THIS too... this means twice in four days if you're not math-savvy. tickets are still available if you're interested!

U BETTER BE STREET IF U LOOKIN AT ME

"the focal point of crunk is more often the beats and music than the lyrics therein"
--- wikipedia

my bff kt found DESTINY'S CHILD's CLASSIC, SOLDIER, to which i know about 95% of the words, on my ipod and was shocked and awed. now listen, i think the immediate characterization of me as hating rap and hip-hop is unfair. one of my strongest memories of myself as a pre-teen is (100% serious) doing that dance to LIL JON's GET LOW at a school dance. you know, the one where you throw your hands TO THE WINDOW, then TO THE WALL (this is coincidentally the same dance i would be doing to oxford comma to this day, but maybe there is some kind of transcendent connection here?)
i legitimately like JAY-Z especially when he is mashed up with ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI in this amazing thing i can't find an mp3 of but can if you really want it called 99 HEARTS. also i would be lying if i said i didn't really love THIS SONG and i didn't listen to it all the time. in fact i'm listening to MISSY right now because i've been really hankering for this song since homecoming friday night when i will admit i got down in the exact same way i get down to stuff like MGMT and elvis costello on my own time to a great deal of sucker-free-sunday fodder. but what is to be expected??

the other day i heard THE STROKES' CLASSIC 12:51 on the radio in the car with my mom. at first i was thinking "ugh, everything sounds like this" but then i realized that EVERYTHING DIDN'T SOUND LIKE THIS UNTIL THIS. love them or hate them (have you noticed this, that it is always the 'influential' bands that are so polarizing?) you have to admit that from IS THIS IT until VERY RECENTLY pretty much every indie band to achieve some kind of popularity sounded like the strokes? this is because, i think, there is SO RARELY any kind of freshness or newness in the indie-stry (i am a genius) that when something achieves popularity everyone begins to rip it off. so now we have all these bands capitalizing on that strokes thing - the fuzzy guitar, the big heavy bassline, that drunken wail/croon that julian casablancas made ridiculously, ridiculously sexy (i think he was the first dude in a band i had a crush on, but this was in eighth grade). the thing is, i have never heard anything maybe with the exception of architecture in helsinki's second album that i said to myself "this doesn't sound like anything i've ever heard." all the bands i like sound like the talking heads. the first time i heard the arcade fire i said to myself "was this on stop making sense?" THERE IS NOTHING NEW IN THIS INDUSTRY. EVERYTHING IS RECYCLED. some things are recycled so well - aih circa places like this, radiohead, vampire weekend, spoon, arcade fire, walkmen, belle and sebastian, etc. etc. etc. - and some things are recycled terribly.

i feel like for the most part hip-hop (not so much rap because i can't tell young jeezy from young joc... wait, is one of them lil?) is much more innovative than indie music. this is why i like missy so much. MISSY KNOWS WHAT SHE'S DOING, OKAY??

if you're an indie kid and you find yourself too cool to listen to mtv type hip-hop and rap let me suggest to you THE COOL KIDS, and of course you already know how i feel about DISCOVERY. because sometimes you need to get down, in that unashamed way. nothing is more liberating than just dancing, absolutely nothing. and it is so easy to do that when you have those insane little synth drizzles, that big bass thump, those verse rhythms. everybody here get it out of control. this brings me back to the epigraph of this post. you don't need to think. all you need to do is dance.

in case you hate me now and refuse to read this blog because of my questionable tastes, let me just tell you that missy just shuffled into NO AGE's "BOY VOID." let me remind you that i took a shoulder to the eye during this song this summer. I'VE GOT SOME INDIE CRED, OKAY?? what does this even mean? i could do a whole other post on this.