Demographic (disambiguation)

This blog is officially more relevant to the Polish than us. Mission accomplished.

 

 

 

p.s. the title for this post would make for a great band name, no?

Lawd Have Mercy! a funky blue soul mix

I know this blog is basically dead, but I've had this one on repeat for quite a while, so I thought I'd share. Download it here. Enjoy!

1. I'm Your Puppet / James & Bobby Purify
2. Girls Can't Do What The Guys Do / Betty Wright
3. Choo Choo Ch'Boogie / Louis Jordan
4. Te-Ni-Nee-Ni-Nu / Slim Harpo
5. Ya Ya / Lee Dorsey
6. Nobody But You / Dee Clark
7. Queen of Hearts / Smiley Lewis
8. Bacon Fat / Big Daddy & His Boys
9. God's LSD / Professor Harold Boggs & The Boggs Specials
10. So Glad I'm Here / Bessie Jones
11. Corinna / Taj Mahal
12. Oh, Pretty Woman / Albert King
13. Mystery Train / Little Junior Parker
14. Fever / Little Willie John
15. Movie It Over, Baby / Gene and Eunice
16. Work That Skirt / The Bo-Keys ft. Harvey Scales
17. Crabcakes / Gunga Din
18. Black Out / Wess & The Airdales
19. I Am What I Am / Marva Whitney & Osaka Monaurail
20. Look At The Stars / The Bobbettes
21. Stop! / Lonette
22. I Can't Lose / Mitty Collier
23. I Dig Girls / J.J. Jackson
24. Gum Drop / Otis Williams
25. The Hoochi Coochi Coo / Hank Ballard
26. She Made My Blood Run Cold / Ike Turner
27. Hey Joe / Wess & The Airdales
28. I Got Soul / Tony Owens
29. Don't Be Angry / Nappy Brown
30. Treat Me Right / Eddie Finley & The Cincinatti Show Band
31. See You Later, Alligator / Bobby Charles

(Download Full Mix Here)

christmas time is here: a yuletide mix

I have always loved just about any music that can be considered Christmas music. Even this song gets me in the spirit. But I especially love some Christmas tunes that aren't the traditional ones. While this mix contains a few standards, it is (at least for me) a new way of experiencing the season.

All that to say, I've been spinning this thing non-stop for a couple of weeks. It's kind of like an Oreo cookie, with black music on the top and bottom and white music squeezed in the middle.

Click here to download the zip file.

Merry Christmas everyone!

1. Holy, Holy, etc. / Sufjan Stevens
2. Swingin' Them Jingle Bells / Fats Waller & His Rhythm
3. Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto / James Brown
4. Ain't No Chimneys / Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
5. Black Christmas / The Harlem Childrens' Chorus
6. White Christmas / The Drifters
7. Happy X-Mas (War Is Over) / John Lennon
8. You're All I Want For Christmas / Jump, Little Children
9. The Man With All The Toys / The Beach Boys
10. Christmas Song / Vince Guaraldi Trio
11. Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! / Doris Day
12. Lo, How A Rose E're Blooming / Feist
13. Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel / Joshua James
14. Christmas Must Be Tonight / The Band
15. Christmas Time Is Here / Vince Guaraldi Trio
16. Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis / Tom Waits
17. River / Joni Mitchell
18. I Love NYE / Badly Drawn Boy
19. Christmas In New Orleans / Louis Armstrong
20. White Christmas / Otis Redding
21. Don't Believe In Christmas / The Sonics
22. Funky Funky Christmas / Electric Jungle
23. Soulful Christmas / James Brown
24. Santa's Got A Bag Of Soul / Soul Saints Orchestra
25. Boogaloo Santa Claus / J.D. McDonald
26. Auld Lang Syne / Black On White Affair

Top 11 of '11

Lists. Lists. Lists. I like lists. Here are my brief thoughts on some of the music from this past year. Long live Thom’s very Lazy Eye!

11. Panda Bear Tomboy

More Panda Bear deliciousness. I don’t own a great pair of headphones, but I listened to this album on my decent pair of headphones this past week and it was like a whole new album to me… if you own a good pair of headphones, do yourself a favor and experience this album anew with a good listen. There’s so much going on in every song.

10. Wilco The Whole Love

“Art of Almost” is awesome… I kind of wish that the rest of the album had as much to offer as this song (though, that may be asking a lot). I’m still really enjoying the remainder of the album (I really am… I think “Black Moon” is very moving, I think “Born Alone” is straight-ahead Wilco fun, I think “Whole Love” is great… and, this album was excellent live… as expected) but I feel like “Art of Almost” was a peek into the type of creativity that so many songs on Being There, Summerteeth and YHF had, which got me excited when I heard it as the opening track but it also left me with a wee bit of longing for something more.

9. Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues

I felt like this album was a really good sophomore effort. I don’t mean that as an insult, it wasn’t a “Sophomore Slump” but it also wasn’t quite as good as their debut… nonetheless, I enjoyed it a lot. I will say that when I saw them at The Ryman this year I was surprised at how good they were live… for some reason I went in with pretty mediocre expectations and they were much better than I expected. Also, this is random, but they were actually really funny… the drummer made a handful of legitimately funny comments… not like, “Oh, you’re on stage, so we’re laughing because we want to be nice and we think you’re cooler than us”, but actually funny. I remember one time some Indie kid yelled, “We’re not worthy!” during the silence in between a couple of the songs (no comment on this kid yelling that). But the drummer just said, “Uhh, security, if you could please exit from the premises the young gentleman sitting in that section over there… he’s not worthy.” I enjoy some level of people not taking themselves too seriously (especially in the whole current Indie scene). I do wonder if Fleet Foxes are going to be able to change their sound up enough to still sound creative a handful of albums from now, I think they have an amazing sound but if they keep making the same type of album over and over again I don’t how long that will work, but I guess we’ll see.

8. My Morning Jacket Circuital

This was certainly a step up from Evil Urges. I’m still not sure about what Jim James (or, Yim Yames) is doing with his voice now… the Kermit the Frog delivery seems to be taking over more and more with each successive album. “Victory Dance” is absurd, and yet it works. “Circuital” is as strong as anything they’ve done (other than, of course, “Golden” which is in an entirely different category). “Outta My System” has that good early-60’s (cars and surfboards) Beach Boys tempo and feel. Good stuff.

7. Dreamers of the Ghetto Enemy/Lovers

People just aren’t making a whole lot of large, arena-ready rock and roll anymore. This album is ready for a 40,000-seat venue and could easily fill up the sound of every seat in the house.

6. Kurt Vile Smoke Ring for My Halo

I was asking Will Farley if he had this album and he said, “Yeah… he’s totally rad. I love the modern, indie Tom Petty thing that’s going on”… well said, Farley.

5. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart Belong

This album is straight out of the 90’s (I mean that in the good sense of the term), but it’s more of a sound from the 90’s that I was never into during the 90’s. But, I’m loving this whole sound now and definitely digging this album.

4. Real Estate Days

The first three songs of this album are so solid. “Easy” is a great opener… that sweet, smooth guitar is so inviting alongside those vocals. And, “Green Aisles” is so open… not “open” in the sense of vulnerable lyrics or something like that, but the sound of it is so open, there’s room to spare in the song… there’s some air and some space to it where they weren’t overly concerned with jamming every corner of the song with some sound or noise or whatever… they just let the song breathe… it’s open. The chorus to “It’s Real” feels so good. The rest of the album doesn’t exactly fall off after these first three songs (“Municipality” is a very tasty treat), though I do feel that these first few songs are gold and on their own make for this being a really solid album.

3. The War On Drugs Slave Ambient

This is music made for driving across Middle America while there’s snow on the ground… it’s cold right outside the windows but it’s still warm inside the car. I keep loving this album more and more this year. It obviously fits very hand-in-hand with Kirk Vile’s album this year and yet I felt like it had even more to offer then Vile’s really strong album.

2. Smith Westerns Dye it Blonde

This album is sunshine, happy goodness. This was some of the best, sing-able melodies on an album this year. “All Die Young” is so, so good. That’s the happiest way to sing the depressing phrase “All die young”… it sounds like a hook from a 1970’s television sitcom, you just can’t help but sing along.

1. Girls Father, Son, Holy Ghost

So many albums the past handful of years (and, even albums that I have enjoyed a lot… like some albums on this list) kind of have one basic sound that carries throughout the whole album, where every song has a similar feel and approach and style to it. This album is not at all like that, this thing is all over the place (bouncy pop songs, rock your face off songs, darker whatever type of songs… just all over the place) and yet it all fits together as a single work (which is the kind of stuff that takes and album from “good” to “great” in my opinion). “Vomit” just washes over you. (Uhh… I should probably reword that last sentence.) But, the song “Vomit” is massive… it goes from this quiet, intimate delivery to this Pink Floyd explosion of sound and gravity and it truly is just pouring over you like a waterfall by the end of the song. At the end, when the lines “Come into my heart / Come into my heart / Come into my heart…” keep repeating it just keeps getting better and better. I’ve still got more layers to peel back on this album as I continue to enjoy it more, but this is the one true standout of the year for me.

And, here are my favorite songs by season from this past year (certain songs stick out during certain times of the year, and these are the songs that I was enjoying the most in each of these seasons)…

Winter: “Nothing Was Stolen (Love Me Foolishly)” by Phosphorescent

Spring: “Oh My Heart / It Happened Today” by R.E.M.

Summer: “Go Outside” by Cults

Fall: “Vomit” by Girls

Thom and Jonny

43 years ago on Friday, this blog's namesake was born into this world. 4 years ago tomorrow, thousands of people around the world were waking up early to download In Rainbows. And 11 years ago this past weekend, a little album called Kid A was released to the populace much like a grenade is released into a trench full of soldiers.

In light of these coincidences, and the name of the blog, I am going to celebrate by watching this absolutely fantastic set of tunes from Thom and Jonny at Le Resevoir in Paris, France. Taped July 3, 2003, this show came about a month after Hail to the Thief had come out.

Please enjoy by clicking here.



They also did this on Monday:

handsome furs, sound kapital

if you couldn't tell from the mix i posted a while back, i like the handsome furs. my obsession started some time after face control came out. i needed my wolf parade fix and spencer krug's numerous spin offs just weren't cutting it (i do really like sunset rubdown, but that's another story). but the handsome furs aren't just a wolf parade sound alike. the married couple is about making awesome music. i probably wore out face control several times over, but i kept going back. it was worth it.

atkins told me that their new album was out, and on emusic. no hesitation. i hoped for at least something on par with the previous album, but, ever the pessimist, prepared for something sub-par. what i got was sound kapital, an album inspired and written during the couples' trip abroad in southeast asia, and elsewhere (i believe the title refers to the beijing punk underground, but i'm too lazy to do real research). the album continues along the premise of the handsome furs' bare guitar, synth and drums construction, most of the songs are quick, ragged and immediately dance-able. it's a lot of fun.

[the album cover, edited for all audiences]

but it's album's heart-on-sleeve mentality that pushes it over the top in my mind. the songs are refreshingly forthright (i love the line, "a thousand lonely kids making noise in the basement" on "cheap music"). many artists seem content to exploit a trip abroad to "raise awareness" or fill stadiums to generate support that often seems more about the band than the people in need. this band took a trip and made really, really good music about it. this isn't about guilt, fixing people or romanticizing them. they're telling a story.

but it also serves as the band's statement on what they want/need to believe. one of my favorite songs, "repatriated" ends with a call to arms (or wish?):

I've seen the future
And its comin' in low
I've seen the future
I will never be repatriated

love it. there's something so honest about their entire approach to this album that is fantastic. even their maxims are filled with self-doubt.

typically, pitchfork (now 15) sums it up best:

With new wave confections like "Memories of the Future" and "What About Us", Sound Kapital effectively conjures an alternate 1980s where Bruce Springsteen didn't just tinker around with synths and drum machines on occasion, but actually tried to make a full-on Depeche Mode record.

hope you enjoy.

jason

also, let's give this new spotify thing a try, i believe clicking on this link should open up he album in spotify if you're a member. if you're not, you should be.

Reading the Aeroplane Over the Sea

I just posted about this book on GoodReads (for those of you who like to get your GoodReads on), but I realized that this post is also about an album (as well as being about a book), so I thought I’d add this post to Thom’s as well.

There is this series of books (which you can see here) and each book in the series is written about a specific album in music history (with one author assigned to each book). The series is called 33 1/3 (because of the speed of an LP album… hopefully that’s obvious). I’ve read a few books in this series, and (in general) I just wanted to mention the series because some of you may be interested in reading some of these books… they’re all pretty short books (somewhere between 120-200 pages each), but I just finished reading one on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and I thought I’d post my reflections here… this is kind of a mixture of my reflections on the album as well as my reflections on the book about the album.

Before reading Kim Cooper’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea I had previously read a couple of other books in the 33 1/3 series (one on REM’s Murmur and the other on The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds). Murmur and Pet Sounds were both albums that I loved before reading the books about them; they were albums that I had already memorized backwards and forwards and I already loved every single note on those albums, and reading a book about each one of them only made me love those albums even more. But, with In the Aeroplane Over the Sea I had a very different experience. This was an album that I had never gotten into. It came out while I was in college, which should have been a time when I would have been ripe for enjoying this album, but I just never got into it… and I had heard pieces of it every now and then over the years since then, but for some reason it just never clicked with me… the only real explanation for why I had never gotten into it was because I just didn’t “get it”. I guess the timing was wrong, but it just never hit me in such a way that I really cared about it. For whatever reason (maybe it’s some of the music I’ve been getting into recently… music, which I now see, was heavily influenced by this monumental album), but (whatever it was) I was finally ready for this album. The timing was finally right (which, in all honesty, is so critical for enjoying so much music… you can’t force that timing, you just have to wait until the time is right to get into some specific bands and when the time is right it just works for some reason and there really is no other way to explain it).

I’ve now had this CD playing in my car non-stop for the past six months (yes, I still listen to CD’s… and it’s been in the six-disc CD-changer in my car for half a year now and I haven’t ejected it once). I’ve previously had the experience with albums where I continue to peel back layer after layer after layer of the beauty of an album and I continue to appreciate the album more and more over time… uncovering new layers of beauty and appreciation that had completely escaped me on all of my previous listening experiences of the album. (Really, all of my favorite albums in music history have given me this experience… that would be a very short list of albums… but I have enjoyed this experience with a decent number of albums, and it’s one of the things that I just plain love about music.) With Aeroplane that experience just kept happening… it kept happening every single time I made another lap through the album (and, over the past six months I feel safe in assuming that I’ve heard this album around a hundred times), and I just keep enjoying it more and more. What is it about this album that does that? I mean, it’s “raw”… to use that over-used music descriptor… but, it’s raw-er than raw, it’s not trying to be “raw” in the sense of heavy-metal or some kind of music that is trying to prove to you that it is raw, like it’s saying, “Hey, look at me, I’m music and I’m loud and I’m raw! Rarrrr!!!”… it’s “raw” in the sense of just jamming right into your chest without any pretense… it’s like jamming a meaty sandwich into your face with no condiments on it. It’s just there and it’s real and you taste it and it’s good and you can’t believe how simple it is but also how excellent it is… and yet, the more you experience it, you realize that’s it’s not simple at all… it’s anything but simple… what at first seemed so simple now has so many complex layers to it.

As far as the book is concerned, I really enjoyed the way Kim Cooper wrote… she took you back into the season that Jeff and the band were making this album and made you feel like you were living with them and riding around in the van with them and just getting to know them. I also appreciated the way she described the In the Aeroplace Over the Sea recording sessions… there have been other times when I have read articles or books where the writer talks about the recording process of an album and unless you have a Masters Degree in Engineering and Production you can’t understand a word they’re saying (that was actually one of the weaknesses to the book on Murmur in this series… the technical jargon was just too technical). But, at the same time, I love hearing how things were recorded and how certain sounds were captured in the studio, and when some bit of technical expertise during the recording process makes for a deeper understanding of the music, I think that’s awesome and I think Cooper was able to explain that really well and not make me feel completely lost. I also appreciated the way she talked through each song… she wasn’t trying to give some sort of word-for-word explanation of the lyrics, and thereby taking away from the individual enjoyment that each listener experiences with this album but at the same time she was able to add a lot of insight to songs that I never would have had a chance to uncover on my own. I have a very odd experience with the lyrics to songs. I memorize words to songs absurdly easy… and I’ll remember word-for-word songs that I haven’t heard in over ten years… but yet, I don’t really pay attention to lyrics very often (I’ll know every word in a song, but I’ll have absolutely no clue what that song is about). So, I have to confess my complete and utter ignorance in not realizing that Anne Frank was the main character (for lack of better term) of this album… how in the world I listened to (and sang along with) “Holland, 1945” and didn’t catch this (I mean the song is called “Holland, 1945!” Hello! World War II!), but nonetheless I was very grateful to read about a lot of the themes and inspirations behind a lot of the writing. I had absolutely no clue how to interpret the lyric “I love you, Jesus Christ” the first time I heard that line… I mean, even I (in all of my I-don’t-pay-attention-to-the-meaning-of-lyrics ignorance) at least caught that line and thought, “Uhh… I wonder why he’s saying that… is that sarcasm, or is this a bold and unapologetic profession of faith, or is this something totally different?” I appreciated her addressing some of the more overt lines like that as well as uncovering some other themes while also not trying to explain everything for the reader at the same time.

As the book progresses, once she gets to the point in the “story” when the album is actually released, the book picks up with a speed that the band must have also experienced once the album began to take off and receive critical acclaim as well as pretty decent sells. This book was really well written and helped me to peel back even more layers of enjoyment on an album that I continue to enjoy more and more. Now, who wants to go pick some Carrot Flowers?