I recently raided my friend Gen’s record collection and she helped me put this mix together. I’ve been listening to it a lot lately.
download
1. Budgie - Breadfan
2. The Shocking Blue - Send Me A Postcard
3. Lazy Smoke - Sarah Saturday
4. Christine McVie - And That’s Sayin’ A Lot
5. R. Stevie Moore - Back In Time
6. The Merry-Go-Round - Come Ride, Come Ride
7. Syd Barrett - Octopus
8. Bobb Trimble - One Mile From Heaven
9. The Vaselines - Rory Rides Me Raw
10. CAN - Little Star of Bethlehem
11. Pink Floyd - Lucifer Sam
I’ve been putting together a playlist of covers and decided to share it here. Hopefully a few of these will be new to you. Download here
Track List:
1. The Shins - Strange Powers
2. Madeleine Peyroux - Between the Bars
3. The Langley Schools Music Project - Space Oddity
4. Kevin Drew - Age of Consent
5. Ben Gibbard - You Remind Me of Home
6. Colin Meloy - Every Day Is Like Sunday
7. Elliott Smith - Jealous Guy
8. Nouvelle Vague - The Killing Moon
9. Jon Brion - I’m Gonna Lock My Heart and Throw Away The Key
10. Cat Power - Wonderwall
11. Final Fantasy - Peach, Plum, Pear
12. St. Vincent - These Days
I don’t think I’ve fallen so hard for a Scottish voice since The Proclaimers proclaimed they were over and done with it. Jesus, how have I not heard of this sooner? Sappy, melodic indie rock has been my bread and butter ever since I discovered depression back in high school. And here, for months, this band has been cranking it out, unbeknownst to me. Well, the fog has lifted, the songs have set, and I’m riding the wave of bummer music to the very end.
And while I still have time left, I’m going to call it: The Modern Leper is this year’s “Funeral.”
Last week, Fred Nicolaus, one half of Department of Eagles, looking dapper in a blue blazer with a gold button, stood outside a Starbucks in Manhattan and spoke with me about a number of topics, including Conan O’Brien, Jerry Springer, and bad puns. The bulk of the interview will be published in Thrasher magazine in the near future, but what interested me most was the heart-warming drawings on the band’s website. Nicolaus’ mother, an elementary school teacher, put on her son’s album during a free drawing session and the class produced some amazing results:
Fred and I spoke about the drawings, and since it probably won’t be published in the interview, I’m going to put it here:
I was looking at the website and loved the section where your mom had her students do drawings based on your music.
That’s my favorite part of the site. The funniest part about them is that I don’t understand this concept of a band being two people on a tropical island. There were about twenty of them and almost all of them had an island. It’s really weird; it’s a simple motif and I can understand why kids would be attracted to it, but I don’t know what it has to do with playing music. Normally when you see people on a desert island it has nothing to do with music.
I think my favorite was the one with the guy saying, “I know, I rule!” and the other guy saying, “Yeah.”
Yeah, that one is great.
Have you decided whether that’s you or Dan that’s ruling?
That’s Dan and I’m the one agreeing. At that point I don’t think the kids had met Dan so maybe it’s an extrapolation of his personality.
How did your mom decide to do that?
Well, I don’t know if you have any relatives are teachers, but my mom is always working my brother and I into her stories. So every time I go to visit the kids know everything about what’s going on in my life, like if I just broke up with my girlfriend or something. There will be 5-year-old kids telling me “I’m so sorry.”
And if you haven’t heard In Ear Park yet, I highly recommend checking it out.
After recently listening to Bloc Party’s new album, I’m inclined to believe lead singer Kele Okereke took a page from the book of the average homeboy, because he’s defintiely smoothed out his rapping. While I’ve never looked to Bloc Party for clever or insightful lyrics, I do have to say that when words such as “forlorn” end up sounding more like “full lawn,” I can’t complain. But the best part is when they incorporate recent trends into their music. For example there’s currently nothing that pleases my ears more than the affected British cooing of the word “sudoku” that can be found 1:44 into “waiting for the 7 18.” Try giving it a listen and see if you can help from smiling.
Joanna Newsom’s new album, “Ys” recently leaked and I couldn’t be more pleased. It’s a dense, lush, beautiful sounding record and it’s going to take me some time to wrap my head around it. I predict the music critics will go wild for it. If you haven’t heard Joanna before, do yourself a favor and check her out. She’s one of the most exciting artists working today.
Lilys-In The Presence of Nothing.zip
In 1991 a group called Lilys released an album that sounded so much like My Bloody Valentine that many people thought the group had changed their name for the release. They did not, but Kurt Heasley, the driving force of the Lilys, was able to make his guitar sound the same way Kevin Shields had on Loveless. Shoegaze was dying out and the album never really got its due. At this point the album is out of print and goes for upwards of 40 dollars on amazon.
I’m not the biggest fan of shoegaze or MBV, but I’ve been really into this album lately. I highly recommend it if you like MBV at all.
The new Mountain Goats album leaked today. I haven’t had a chance to give it a full listen, but if it’s anywhere near as good as the last one I’m going to really like it.
You can download the whole thing here in one zip file.
