tell me what it's like to never worry

in case you missed it

2010-10-07T15:51:00.001-04:00

goodbye, babies:

i'm grateful, all the same

2010-09-20T15:43:00.003-04:00

i love the new walkmen record. you should love it, too. there's a lot of good stuff there. right now, though, having listened to it a million times on NPR before it came out, i am most enamored with the two bonus tracks that came from buying it (with monies!) on iTunes. especially this little calypso number, which has the very lovely, upbeat weariness that makes this record so goddamn good. it just fits my mood, especially in the wake of the last show this weekend.

The Walkmen - Grateful by Weallwantsomeone

your memories are being run

2010-09-02T10:46:00.003-04:00

p4k's best songs of the 90s has been what i thought it would be: a bunch of stuff i don't know, a bunch of stuff i don't care about, and a few absolutely spot-on choices. it finishes tomorrow and everyone will argue or complain about it, maybe, but so far there have been a few entries that i could not agree with more. the thing i like is how they picked the exact right songs from these bands-- i think it shows the connoisseurship that is the reason we read critics.

#178: Broadcast - Echo's Answer

simply one of my favorite songs.

#63: Modest Mouse - Trailer Trash

please note that they picked what are almost certainly their 3 best pre-2000s songs for this post: trailer trash, never ending math equation, and broke.

#21: Smashing Pumpkins - 1979

don't deny it.

i don't know but i've been told: you'll never die and you'll never grow old

2010-09-01T00:07:00.002-04:00

september! i didn't plan on starting you off by reading through my old LJ, in reverse chronological order, becoming more mortified as the self-involvement went from huge to monumental and the writing went from bad to uniquely horrific. i was especially struck by the lack of empathy, and the sense of entitlement, and the meanness, smallness, and pettiness-- especially because i remember feeling the way i was feeling at all the different times that i wrote all the different things and i'm almost sure i didn't mean to be that way. the facts are stark: i was that way. ow.

so then i started looking through old songs, and old records, and of course gmail; the damn thing saves so much. i was especially struck by the seeming endlessness:

1-20 of thousands

totally nonchalant.

my point is not about the past specifically, though to say sorry for being such a nightmare to everyone, always, is probably a worthwhile thing to do every time i can; it's more about remembering and taking stock and, hopefully, identifying progress. i'm sure it'll happen plenty of times in the next two months before i move to norway, but i'm glad i kind of stumbled into it without any emotional push. i do a lot of internalizing and compartmentalizing (i like to think of insides as an elaborate, high tech recycling center), especially these days, so it is actually nice to dive into the history books and see what i've been avoiding and what i've forgotten.

still, it's nice to feel like there's been some progress. wiser, not wise; older, not old.

i go through all this before you wake up

2010-08-30T16:24:00.001-04:00

[though said with hands in pocket, I mean it hand on heart]

2010-08-16T12:17:00.004-04:00

from their brand new semi-acoustic reworkings EP "All's Well That Ends"; i like all of the tracks so much (surprise! but no, really, if they were shitty i'd ignore them). they are all surprisingly restrained without losing that essential LC!-ness (the exclamation point?) and are wonderful. this is my favorite of the bunch, not coincidentally because it's one of my favorites from the record and has some of the best lyrics on the whole damn thing. and lovely background vocals.

if your heart is bleeding make the best of it / there is heat in freezing, be a testament

2010-08-14T10:24:00.002-04:00

thanks to jessica for exposing me to this.

if i could see all my friends tonight

2010-08-04T15:51:00.004-04:00

i had heard that this single-handedly made the p4k festival worth it, but i didn't realize what that actually meant until i saw this video. gave me chills at work.

zomg azure ray

2010-08-03T13:53:00.002-04:00

http://bedwettingcosmonaut.com/azure-ray-announce-new-album-tour-dates/

why is this so far away and most likely not attendable??!??!? I WANTS MY NARCOTIC ANGELVOICE SADPOP PLZ

2010-08-02T13:22:00.003-04:00

home, let me come home

2010-06-29T15:33:00.004-04:00

phenomenal song i've posted about before (thanks to andrew for tip); now remixed in an EVEN MORE HEARTBREAKING fashion (thanks to brittany for tip). i frequently think songs should be sadder, and this remix is so successful at elevating this song and accentuating the melancholy. love it.

tried to fight the creeping sense of dread with temporal things; most of the time i guess i felt alright

2010-06-29T13:33:00.002-04:00

soundtrack to (highschool/college/all) goodbyes

2010-06-28T12:10:00.002-04:00

have you ever, have you ever been all messed up?

2010-06-28T11:59:00.001-04:00

haven't we met before / under brighter skies?

2010-06-28T11:54:00.001-04:00

spent half a life deciding what went wrong

2010-06-28T11:51:00.004-04:00

"we're going to play some canadian space rock for ya"

2010-06-09T12:08:00.004-04:00

random thought: i need to move this over to tumblr. blogspot is comparatively busted.
other random thought: i miss lala a lot. i have to use hypemachine for any convenient music now and it's annoying.

for now: do make say think, aka a great band to listen to anytime but especially at work. loved forever, but some rarities/right-now jamz:

great live jam. sick bass.

two of my favorites in the same video, plus great banter.

adorable video for a tender history in rust, which has to be my favorite song to play on guitar.

great song i'd never heard before, entitled "hooray! hooray! hooray!"

and the first track on their newest record, that makes me happy as soon as the first guitar comes in. how do they get all their instruments to sound so fucking good? i don't know.

she says nothing seems the same / and i can't change a thing

2010-06-02T16:26:00.006-04:00

future islands. holy crap. i love them so much. first, listen/watch:

long flight-- let the excellent cokemachine glow review do the talking:

The stand-out “Long Flight,” on the other hand, is a slow burn. It doesn’t bother with a chorus so much as a couple of fragmented refrains (“You can’t look me in my eyes anymore”; “Just ‘cause you needed a hand”) repeated and syntactically rearranged throughout the rest of the song like a frenzied villanelle. The repetition of the lyrics, combined with an ever-intensifying synth line, creates an almost unbearable tension—and, sure enough, Herring finally breaks half a minute before the song ends, thrashing and growling for only a few seconds and then retreating into a defeated whisper. Something about his outburst feels lonely and futile, like gnashing your teeth at a mirror. Because even though all the songs on the record are sung to a certain you, there’s an unshakable sense that the person Herring’s addressing isn’t listening.

swept inside-- new favorite. compared to the extremes he takes his voice to in some of these songs (the next one in particular), the calm delivery of this song is grounding. part of me wants everyone to listen to this one first, since it's so obviously good and because it's not as immediately challenging as the other two, but just trust me here.

an apology-- one of the best songs i've heard in so long. the video is fantastic-- his energy, at first, seems insane, until the ... tenderness ... of his delivery comes through. i think tenderness is the right word. andy first got me into this band by saying, quote,

can't explain why i love it so much
singer dude has a sort of tom waits/meatloaf/ shakespeare live theatre sort of thing going on
just give them a chance
it's like posessed meatloaf
i'm serious

note that THIS IS THE WRONG WAY TO APPROACH THIS BAND. i saved this one for last so you wouldn't go, ok, music that al;ec likes plus insane meatloaf singer, great, i think i will take a huge pass on that thank you. but you know what? you'd be wrong, and i want you to have the opportunity to be right, so, please. enjoy.

is it an epic breakup album? yeah, no doubt about that, but it has beautiful keyboards, some really serious peter hook bass, an amazing strange singer, and songs that i guarantee will be in your head for days. thank god for good new music.

if i live too long i'm afraid i'll die

2010-05-20T16:39:00.004-04:00

great band, great song, great cover. has been on repeat for days.

goddamn it, amanda, goddamn it all

2010-05-12T14:35:00.004-04:00

hi blog! here's a phenomenal new song about getting divorced.

and, for old time's sake, a phenomenal old song about getting divorced.

and i plan to be forgotten when i'm gone

2010-04-30T16:24:00.006-04:00

various concerns:

1) lala is shutting down. this basically sucks, even if it may mean that iTunes is going streaming/online soon (apple bought lala). i will miss it, as will anyone trying to listen to anything i've ever posted on this blog before, which is a bummer.

2) the new tallest man on earth record is phenomenal. starting points:

burden of tomorrow: the happiest, i think, of all the songs on here.

a lion's heart: one of the saddest, i think, of all the songs on here.

the wild hunt: i like to think that this is a really happy wake song. (the only possible reply to this kind of statement, is, i know, "you would think that")

thousand ways: something about a thousand makes for good songs. current favorite.

3) we've got a show coming up, curated by and featuring some of my favorite people. may 14th, velvet lounge, apparently there's a flyer and everything. there may be a new song or two, some covers we don't usually get to do, etc., pending steve's return from palestine. maybe some details will be revealed about me moving away? who knows.

ADDENDUM:
4) i forgot to mention how much i've been digging late-period Johnny Cash since i listened to a lot of it to/from SF a few weeks ago. primarily these two covers:

i see a darkness (ft. bonnie "prince" billy) -- duh. great backup vox by will oldham. i may have posted this before, but who cares?

hurt -- not only does this song rule, and makes me really sad (also duh), but the production is PHENOMENAL. i want, someday, to make a song that sounds this good. rick rubin produced it; the money was obviously there; but apart from the guitar sounding perfect, the build in the end makes the vocals peak ever so slightly and fills up 110% of the sonic space. it is a physical enveloping. (this youtube is low quality and does it no justice-- find a better version if you can).

she said one day to leave her, sand up to her shoulders, waiting for the tide / to drag her to the ocean, to another sea shore

2010-04-27T23:13:00.004-04:00

listening to this live tonight, context included, made me resolve to either die or move away. as moving away involves a lot less cleanup, i think that's what i'll do. details TK

dance party wisdom

2010-04-25T00:41:00.001-04:00

you lot may all be missing out, that's true,

but if you haven't the time, interest, or patience,

are you really missing out at all?

lost/found EP

2010-04-05T21:29:00.006-04:00

it's been a while, right, blog? sorry. i've been, well, busy.

in lieu of a real update, here's an EP i made that i got tired of sitting on. listen if you'd like-- they're almost all different from any of their myspace versions, and they sound 90% like what i want them to sound like, and sound 0% like anything we've ever played live. so, enjoy. it's good for listening to at work, since 3 of 5 are instrumental.

hello, babies -- lost and found EP

ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT AND SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF ONE SHAUNA Q. ALEXANDER (thank you!)

so i wrote this thing

2010-03-26T13:06:00.001-04:00

and now it'll be the first thing future employers see when they google my name.

hope you enjoy it!

look what elizabeth made!

2010-03-22T17:30:00.001-04:00

http://www.elizabethgraeber.com/

buy things from her. come out to see us next week. hugz.

2010-03-18T23:39:00.002-04:00

are you a man or are you a bag of sand?

2010-03-15T23:35:00.005-04:00

it's dumb to get new music through tv shows, but hey, this isn't the first time i've learned a song i love by a band i recognize through watching chuck (ps: last two episodes have absolutely justified my decision to stick with this show). he's also playing my exact guitar.

oh and here's an old acoustic version

he looks a bit like nick offerman in this one.

i feel like i would really like this band. plus, i am quite fond of songs where it's unclear whether they want you not to give up or to give up. also, songs about drowning.

not gonna win you round with prose; if anyone should know, then it's i should know

2010-03-11T09:50:00.006-05:00

i had a dream last night in which i was hanging out in a nearly empty hotel ballroom with los campesinos! who were playing conan o'brien's show, even though it was already off the air (thus why i was the only one there). after conan and i sang along with the band (i can't remember which song, but i know it was quite vivid in my dream, and i of course knew all the words), he went a bit ape and started tearing the walls out of said hotel ballroom. also, i only know it was a hotel ballroom because it had ugly carpet.

then we went outside and played soccer. then i ran home? i'm not sure.

i got three things from this:
1) if i drink lots of gin and tonics i have fun dreams;
2) in my drunkenness i managed to set a google calendar alarm to buy LC! tickets this morning
3) everyone should follow conan on twitter.

bonus:
4) my subconscious is deeply, deeply strange.

so fucking on, and so fucking forth / we've got your back, whatever that's worth

2010-03-08T11:29:00.010-05:00

i've pretty much been listening to joanna nonstop for two weeks (unsurprisingly), and with good reason. i've also been mixing an EP (!!), which basically entails listening to my songs over and over and over again and tweaking them slightly, which is driving me a bit batshit (but progress is being made-- hopefully in time for march 29). it will not surprise you to learn that i get a bit obsessive about my favorite records and listen to them incessantly and intently, which is why i'm sometimes bad at getting into new stuff. the plus side of all this is that my favorite records make me intensely happy, and that i can tell which records are really wonderful by how much time i put into them, because i am unconsciously drawn to listening to them over and over. when i have come up for air from have one on me in the last couple weeks, here's what i have loved:

los campesinos!

have i mentioned i love this record? yes? shut up. these two songs got me pumped up this morning.

phoenix

the perfect workout record. background music for my accidental 5 mile run up a mountain this weekend.

do make say think

possibly the best record to listen to at work (especially for those of us who love maximally wordy music and can't get any work done while listening to it); also, tremendously warm and rewarding, and perhaps their best record (along with a tender history in rust).

vampire weekend (WHAT?!?)

no, seriously. this song is awesome. and the snow is gone, thank fucking god. it's sort of natural that it's the only song of theirs that i like.

oh, also, kittens. be happy.

and i had begun to fill in all the lines

2010-03-08T10:41:00.003-05:00

for the record, i did this first. also, robin peckinold? sounds like a made up name. but great beard, and good cover.

cloudy

2010-03-04T15:34:00.004-05:00

dear blog,

one of the best things about having written in this stupid thing for one and a half years is that i've accrued a lot of stupid, stupid tags. so, i've added them onto the bottom of the page in cloud form. take a walk down memory lane with me and gaze at all the things i thought were funny.

warmly,
management

ps: this was prophesied in the very first post. key line:

also, i will probably think of lots of funny jokes, and i will need a place to publish them to universal acclaim.

i don't belong to anyone

2010-03-04T11:02:00.005-05:00

cont'd

but you can take my hand in the darkness, darling, like a length of rope

2010-03-02T11:59:00.002-05:00

cont'd.

have i had a hand in your loneliness?

2010-02-27T08:04:00.003-05:00

cont'd.

Wolf-spider, crouch in your funnel nest,
If I knew you, once,
now I know you less,
In the sinking sand,
where we've come to rest,
have I had a hand in your loneliness?

When you leave me alone
in this old palace of yours,
it starts to get to me. I take to walking,
What a woman does is open doors.
And it is not a question of locking
or unlocking.

Well, I have never seen
such a terrible room-
gilded with the gold teeth
of the women who loved you!
Now, though I die,
Magpie, this I bequeath:
by any other name
a jay is still blue

with the loneliness
of you mighty men,
with your mighty kiss
that might never end,
while, so far away,
in the seat of the west,
burns the fount
of the heat
of that loneliness.

There's a man
who only will speak in code,
backing slowly, slowly down the road.
May he master everything
that such men may know
about loving, and then letting go.

on a good day you can feel my love for you

2010-02-25T13:57:00.003-05:00

it's no secret that i've been feeling down lately...

just kidding! it is, because i don't hang out, and i don't blog about it. so let's at least change that second part. joanna just got downloaded, and she's pretty much all i need. so far, this song is making me want to cry at my desk.

hugz

2010-02-14T18:51:00.004-05:00

did you or someone you know send me this? it's really nice (i got choked up) but it's also anonymous, and i don't feel good about that. so, please let me know if you sent it, by sending me an email at anonymouspolaroidrecipient at gmail dot com.

V3: I can always be found

2010-02-14T12:09:00.009-05:00

well, we're here. volume 3 is finished and polished up into a pretty interesting mix-- and it's probably just as likely to make you cry as any of the other ones, sadly. that being said, this was by far the trickiest one to put together, because it encompasses a group of songs that i think of as most experimental or unconventional than the first two, and as such they are longer and a little stranger and a little all over the map. also, it's three sides, instead of two, because i am insane. side A ends on "the purple bottle," side B goes from "shut up i am dreaming of places where lovers have wings" to "the other side of mt. heart attack," and side C is "anthems for a seventeen year old girl" on. the subtext is A = mostly happy, B = super sad, C = uplifting-ish.

getting the tone right was important, and the key thing, strangely enough, was finding the right bjork songs. much as i love bjork, the versions of her songs that i love best are remixes or alternate versions, especially for mixes-- the ones on the record are pretty desolate. so, i finally got the sequencing right, found the key songs, and now it scans much happier than it did with the originals.

so, this pretty much attempts to encompass all the strangeness of loving someone, foreign as that concept sounds to me. as songs, this collection is pretty ambitious, but there are moments in each of them that are brutal and wonderful. let me point out a few of my favorite moments:

"the way you look could seriously make nature dysmorphic"
"here's the color of my heart as it's starting to crack"
"carry my joy on the left / carry my pain on the right"
"can i tell you that you are the purple in me?"
"if i fall into the drink, i will say your name before i sink"
"twist your head around-- it's all around you"
"i remember everything, and i never want to stop"
"i could take away the shaky knees, and i could give you all the olive trees"
"you couldn't lose me if you tried"
and of course, "i can always be found"

so, see if you like it. i've embedded it again, with the wrong bjork songs, but because i love you i've also included all three volumes, downloadable, labeled, and in order. because it's valentine's day. enjoy.

V1: All I want is your eyes (download via rapidshare)

V2: An honest verse of longing or a simple song of hope (download via google)

V3: I can always be found (download via rapidshare)

note that i tried uploading to google docs as well as rapidshare-- let me know if you have any problems downloading and i'll be happy to get it to you one way or the other.

V2: An honest verse of longing or a simple song of hope

2010-02-13T00:01:00.002-05:00

so, volume 2 of the mix has arrived-- i'm heartened by the fact that many of you have listened to volume 1, and unsurprised to realize that the songs aren't as happy as i thought they were, but give me the benefit of the doubt on this. volume 2 is a bit more conventionally happy... for most of it.

splitting these into three unique chunks was mostly a function of necessity, but i think i stand by it. there's one greatest hits collection to be culled from these 42 vaguely happy songs, but that's not really the point. i'm of the opinion that mixes should be a little more challenging than just corralling your favorite songs or disparate songs with similar titles. for volume 2, i wanted to include all the conventional pop songs with full band arrangements that i thought fit the mold of songs you might include to really seal the deal on any mixtape you made for that person you wanted to seal the deal with-- so it gets pretty obvious. belle and sebastian? check. (dating all the way back to high school, no less! i've been unconvincingly cynical for YEARS.) stars? duh. twice. could have made up half the list. zombies? yup. but...

i came up with the title before i came up with the idea for three mixes worth of love songs, and i knew pretty much right away i wanted bowl of oranges to end this one-- it's sort of the thesis statement for the whole project. to that end, bonnie 'prince' billy unexpectedly makes two appearances, as does some neutral milk hotel, and an unabashedly lovelorn magnetic fields song (is there any other kind? that i have covered?), and one of my favorite old smashing pumpkins songs. i think that honest verses of longing have just as much standing as simple songs of hope when you're dealing with mixes. so, this mix ends side A with "look up," which, duh, totally killer. it starts side B with "love comes to me."* it's not found if it's not lost at some point along the way-- you will not be surprised to know that i enjoy the journey.

so! i hope you like this one, too. it should at the very least give you something to listen to no matter what sort of mood you're in.

*: i changed the sequencing for vols. 2 and 3 after i had linked them in the initial post, and made a few additions, in case you were wondering.** also, for volume 1, side A ends on "i found a reason" and side B starts with "a tender history in rust." in case you were wondering.***

**: you weren't; it's fine.

***: you weren't; it's also fine.

V1: All I want is your eyes

2010-02-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

let's start with the obvious: in retrospect, this is not a purely happy mix. i mean, i tried, i really did-- you have to believe me. but there's only so much i could do on my own. i was considering asking for help from friends who like happy music more than me (i almost dug through the entire "zombie heaven" 4-disc set jessica sent me, because i know there's plenty of happy in that), but i wanted to do something that satisfied a few criteria:

1) ease. i used only songs that i had immediate access to. i bought a bjork song, and it isn't even the version i wanted, but it cost 10 cents, so oh well.

2) familiarity. i know almost every word to all of these songs, so i think i can personally vouch for their worth, but since i know them well they can also vouch for my personality-- i don't tend to listen to songs i don't like more than once, so these mixes say a lot about me.

3) freshness. you'll notice that some of my all time favorite love songs-- say yes, at the hop, penelope, kathy with a k's song, etc.-- did not make it. that's for a reason. there are plenty of duplicates from other mixes i've made, of course, but i wanted to look a little harder for songs that fit the mood without being too easy. i think "thirteen" does what "say yes" doesn't, at least for me: it looks forward, not back.

so, after listening through vol. 1, i'm pretty pleased with the experiment. like most things i do, i'm not going to go back and edit these too much, even though i know i've left out a lot and could probably reorder them or otherwise improve. they're nice experiments, and they're just what i want to be: obviously extremely flawed, but hopefully lovable for being so off-kilter.

love-barf.

ps: some of these will be greyed out, unfortunately-- look for them on youtube them or something. they're easy to find (ahem beatles ahem)

pps: i'm really glad i remembered the against me! song for a couple reasons: one is that it's awesome; two is that my against me! tshirt finally died today-- the hole in the sleeve finally metastasized and now it's a one-sleeve tshirt; three is that the transition from "i will" to "we did it all for don" is kind of priceless.

oh yes you can, just hold my hand, i think that that would help

2010-02-11T16:56:00.005-05:00

i wanted to do something for valentine's day, especially given that i'm going to stay in my house with a bottle of gin and not emerge for the entire day (which has been happening a lot recently, due to snow/boringness). the thing is: valentine's day is not that good a holiday, but the nice thing is that it can only be good. if you're like me, be a hermit! let it pass! if there are people you want to spend it with, so-called 'significant' or otherwise, spend it with them! it shouldn't be that stressful.

to that end, as a way to try and prove to myself how much i've changed since i created a two-disc "valentine's day sucks" mix back in college, and to prove that i haven't changed at all... i've created a three-disc mix of love songs. there's so little sadness on these three lists that i find it hard to believe i like all the songs, but in fact i do. give them to somebody, listen to them, or just make your own-- doesn't matter. i'll post them over the next three days with a few comments, and you can get a head start here if you are impatient.

i started thinking about this in the context of listening to old songs i recorded, and in the process rediscovered the bright eyes song "bowl of oranges." it's the first song i ever recorded, in 2003; and, god, my cover sucks. REAL BAD. i had no idea how to sing. it's impossible to listen to, and i don't love or hate anyone enough to expose them to it. however, the actual song is wonderful, and it's the sort of thing you should listen to in bed on a sunny sunday morning, full or empty though your bed may be. i'm considering covering it again, just to see how far things have progressed in 7 years of pseudo-adulthood. so, happy valentine's day.

as far as we could know (updated several times)

2010-02-05T12:44:00.007-05:00

i don't really know why i've been moderately productive on music things recently-- maybe because i'm a little bored, and slacking off on the other parts of life? or spending more time alone? either way, it's all for the best.

the other thing i don't really know is why i keep wrapping songs in all these layers of synth and noise, but they're good experiments, and a few came out reasonably well. now i just need to find three keyboard players-- one to teach me what the hell i'm doing, and two to figure out what i recorded and how to reproduce it without a macbook. or, you know, start from scratch. the snowstorm this weekend is going to allow for a lot of cooking and a lot of music, so hopefully something good comes from it. in the meantime: a song vaguely memorializing my old car. or something. ~~listen.~~

update: sorry, nevermind, it sucks and i need to redo it or rethink it before i post it. it's important not to put out offal.

update #2: ok, i'm pretty proud of what came out now. listen, if you'd like.

home is wherever i'm with you

2010-02-02T10:48:00.004-05:00

i decided to put this together a week or two ago. good stuff! who doesn't like epic songs, or making mixtapes? when in the mood, i might make other vague categories (good instrumental songs for mxitapes, interludes for mixtapes, love songs for mixtapes, lukewarm not-that-into-you songs for mixtapes, breakup songs for mixtapes, balls-out rock and roll for mixtapes, etc.) and post them. don't expect too much.

also: leave suggestions in the comments! my knowledge of epic songs is decent but pretty specific. let me know about others. andrew was spot-on with "home," and you can be too.

it pains me but i'm sure she's still yrs

2010-02-01T10:48:00.004-05:00

i've been anxiously awaiting the pfork review of the new LC! album for the last week-- there were several long-awaited releases last tuesday (beach house, magnetic fields) so i didn't know exactly when it would get published. leaving aside your feelings about the site, it's pretty undeniable that if they love or hate something it tends to solidify the consensus-- and honestly, the reviews recently have tended to be thoughtful and well-written, so maybe that's deserved. anyway, since i like this band so much i feel like i have a rooting interest. i think paul thompson's review is very flattering and well reasoned, and though i'm a bit disappointed they didn't give it a Best New Music tag, it's not the end of the world.

also, one of my favorite songs on the album reminds me of something else i recently talked about here (for better or worse), in the context of an LC! song. i like this record for being more upbeat and in your face than most stuff i listen to, but also for being right up my alley: it's about death, breaking up, etc.; in specific, it's about being with the wrong person, and finally coming around to that realization, whether it's that the person is wrong for you or that you're wrong for them, or whatever. whereas "the sea is a good place to think of the future" is the emotional centerpiece of the record, this feels like the third quarter of a relationship that's ending. plus, there's this:

In a note I wrote, "I think too much about the end
But being around it made me feel like I'm coping now.
When I view the cemetery, I don't see headstones
I see rows of engraved middle teeth, hungry, waiting for me
And though I am fearful, I think I just crave the relief"

Yup!

oh, and then the coda. i know it's a long record, but come on. this song is so good. it's the fifth quarter of a relationship that's ending.

ALSO ALL THESE SONGS ARE REALLY FUCKING GOOD. please don't sleep on that.

the first time, the last time, all the times i would have liked there to have been

2010-01-30T18:32:00.004-05:00

friends: i keep trying to write about this album but i can't without sounding dumb. i've listened to it a lot. i really, really like it, and i can see it becoming one of my favorites, and i would recommend it to others-- so here you go.

in my hardening to every heart but one

2010-01-26T22:21:00.003-05:00

the unending amends you've made
are enough for one life,
be done,

i believe in innocence,
little darlin',
start again
i believe in everyone.

AHHHHHHHHH NEW LOS CAMPESINOS!

2010-01-19T14:30:00.001-05:00

gogogogogogogoogogogogo

http://www.myspace.com/loscampesinos

full record streaming!!!!!! i love it already

but all in all, the ceiling's coming down

2010-01-18T14:29:00.002-05:00

it's been an intense three days.

dear blog

2010-01-13T18:07:00.004-05:00

sometimes i almost forget about you! life gets busy, you know. here are some things i have been enjoying:

bill callahan-- jim cain

charles barkley's absolutely inexplicable transubstantiation of lack of acting, cue card-reading, or general charisma into GENIUS COMEDY

andy samberg's surprisingly spot on impression of the greatest actor of our generation

uh, conan, duh.

probably others; my dad just called and is bothering me. peace later.

oh hey i finished a new song

2010-01-11T00:06:00.006-05:00

it was originally called "there's no telling 01 02 09" because i recorded it MORE THAN A YEAR AGO. as i was leafing through old derelict recordings, i found it (and some other fun things) and while i was at the coffee shop today i thought i'd try to make it into a full song, you know, with parts and whatnot. i'm always trying to live up to my reputation: minimal folk-electronica blend, and while it's mostly accidental that it comes out that way, i suppose i have to agree with them. they know me better than i know myself.

without further ado: 373 days after first being recorded, here is "there's no telling 01 10 10"

with turnaround time like this, i should have a record done by the end of the century! or by the next wrens album!

this thing hurts like hell / but what did you expect?

2009-12-29T13:11:00.006-05:00

i know i've posted this before, but it bears re-posting. since i heard it, i've listened to it more than a hundred times. i put it on my ipod on the drive back to montevideo from punta del este yesterday, during a stretch of rolling hills and farmland(1), after which i listened to kid a in its entirety. that sets the general scene for where my mind was at. today we went to the cemetery in montevideo where there are plots for both sides of my dad's family-- one from 1903, and one from 1936. we put some very nice daisies(2) on each of them, and i listened to this song on the walk from one to another, just to be alone with my thoughts for a minute, since i've had increasing trouble over the last couple of years getting in touch with more than surface-level emotions. it really helped.

on the drive back the day before, i got to thinking about a few things that i hadn't had the time or desire to chew over very much recently. i'm not particularly interested in going into a detailed overshare, but i have been undersharing for a good while and since i assume only my friends (and only a few of them at that) read this(3), it may be worthwhile. my farcical relationship over the summer is something that has not totally settled in my mind, but it definitely bothers me. when i listen to the song i posted above, apart from the bits that trigger very specific personal memories, it mostly reminds me of how hard i tried, in that instance, to be the sort of person i've always wanted to be-- calm, reasonable, interested, flexible, supportive, etc. basically, an adult. and guess what? i did! i totally fucking did. best boyfriend ever. i would recommend me in the future. part of being a good person, in my mind, is doing what you can and having faith that other people will do the same. when that turned out not to be the case, i at least rest easy knowing that it absolutely was not my fault. the trick, though, is this: when you've been so burned, you've got to still be able to extend that faith to other people, but even if you (as i have) tell yourself that you are, and can, and will again, it's hard not to be a bit wary. as much as i feel like i've grown into somebody pretty cool, it's still difficult to allow chaos into my pretty well-ordered world. in fact, i think it's harder to allow myself to feel any sort of more-than-surface-level vulnerability now that i feel in control of things a bit more, since, you know, i've grown up a bit since i was 16. or 18. or 20. or 22. whatever(4). i don't know whether it was the drive, the music, the several months that have elapsed for me to unconsciously go over and over all the crazy bullshit that happened and try to find some sort of rationality in it or accept it for being insanity, or the insane driving down here in a recalcitrant stick shift truck, or what, but it feels pretty good to at least feel scared or tired or sad in a less controlled way. being in a strange country(5) helps that. and, of the many, many things i like about this song, my favorite part during the first couple days of my trip has been the first crescendo into the chorus:

She said one day to leave her
sand up to her shoulders
waiting for the tide
to drag her to the ocean
to another sea’s shore.

This thing hurts like hell
but what did you expect?

who doesn't feel that way? fuck, man, i started feeling strange and guilty for NOT feeling like i was buried to the shoulders. but this is not a sad song, and really, i'm not telling a sad story. it's just life. lots of things remind us of that. including the chorus:

And all you can hear is the sound of your own heart
And all you can feel is your lungs flood and the blood course
But oh I can see five hundred years
dead set ahead of me
Five hundred behind
A thousand years in perfect symmetry

there's beach and sea absolutely everywhere you go here. and it's not a bad place to think about anything.

footnotes:
(1): the eucalyptus trees are all planted in straight rows, probably about a meter apart, so from a distance they look like patches of forest. when you drive by, though, since their trunks are mostly free of vegetation, you see the lines perfectly in a flip-book or stop-motion effect, and the foliage makes for a kind of archway. it's like driving through the alhambra. so wonderful.

(2): we bought them from a lady at a stand across from the cemetary, who we talked to at length. long conversations with strangers happen all the time and i expect they will continue as the trip goes on. they're usually wonderful and interesting and she was no exception. turns out she is italian (from salerno, south of naples), has lived in montevideo for a long time, has family in italy, australia, and toronto and so has been to all of them though she speaks no english. she said, interestingly, that americans and canadians "son frios" or are cold. i thought that was pretty interesting, and from her perspective she's exactly right. as an example, she said, with apparent amazement, that her son lives in an apartment building but knows none of his neighbors! it's amazing to people here. everyone, and i mean everyone, is extremely friendly, neighborly, and helpful, to the point that they even tolerate my crappy spanish.

(3): dangerous. i may make this invitation only but i feel like that'd be a lot of work. bah.

(4): i may join a gym in the new year. i still either eat way too little or too much. i'm not ever as funny as i think i am. it's a process. it's certainly not done.

(5): that is especially strange because a lot of things seem so familiar but aren't,

alecsander trip diary vol. 3

2009-12-28T16:12:00.003-05:00

updates on last post:

1) i forgot to mention that i've seen several men who could most accurately be described as "the uruguayan dave matthews." no further comment seems necessary.

2) soon after i wrote about blah blah blah what do i do here, we went on a long walk down the boardwalk next to the beach on the way to dinner. it was goddamn gorgeous outside. we went to a chiviteria (a place that serves chivitos, which are awesome/disgusting hamburgers, kind of like if five guys used steak instead of ground beef and piled egg, ham, cheese, and god knows what else onto a gigantic bun) and naturally i just had a big bottle of patricia, one of the local beers, instead. everyone drinks out of 3/4 L bottles here so that was just the proper serving size, and i started feeling much more at peace with the world. still didn't go dancing or meet any cute or nice argentinian girls, thanks be to challah.

3) we saw steve's doppleganger on the beach the next day. WHAT. still didn't befriend him. seems like a good omen, though.

that takes care of that. the next day we went to the beach, which was really nice. the water was pretty cold but i still really enjoyed it, which is reasonably weird for me. got a bit sunburned on my shoulders. we then went to visit some relatives and ate, then we drove up north 20 miles or so to jose ignacio, which is this strange little outpost with lots and lots of rich people.(1) it was really beautiful and deceptively quaint until you realized that everything was made out of money, even though none of them were particularly gigantic. it's the most exclusive enclave of very rich argentinians and expats. watched the sun set there. by the time we finally made it home, alive but shaken(2), we were exhausted and had to be up early. so ends that day, and today has been quiet but involved a lot of thinking but that either deserves a post of its own or no post at all, depending on how open i'm feeling like being, so we'll leave that for later.

footnotes:
(1): the first day we got here there was a picture on the front page of the newspaper of kevin bacon and kyra sedgwick walking in jose ignacio, which was weird. apparently uma thurman is there now.

(2): all of us forgot the loaner cellphones we've been using, and we were in two cars, so to communicate we stopped and one person got out. this worked pretty well in quiet beach towns, but given how insane the argentinians who have overrun this country drive, it was a terrible idea for our relatives to decide to stop ON THE MIDDLE OF THE HIGHWAY and run back to talk to us. she continued to try to talk to us as we were yelling at her to get back into her car until the yelling got very loud and somewhat vulgar (my bad) but we didn't die. it was touch and go for a minute.

alecsander trip diary vol 2

2009-12-26T19:56:00.004-05:00

today was reasonably uneventful. it's about 11pm as i write this, and the companeros are out shopping for something or another, and i decided to stay at the apartment in punta del este where we're staying for the next couple days. some thoughts:

.) i've seen a lot of really beautiful women holding hands with relatively dumpy men. this sounds like my entire life history, so maybe something about being uruguayan makes people who should know better decide to slum it a bit. who knows.

..) everyone here is still nice looking, though some of them are argentinian; you can kind of tell who they are. they look like jerks and drive like jerks. dec. 26 is the first day each year when uruguay, and especially punta del este, gets invaded by foreign tourists, so despite the fact that it's cloudy and raining on and off, tons of people are out.

...) mi hermana and i are traveling with people whose ages range from 50 to 70, which makes things a bit weird-- we don't know exactly what to do with our time. i certainly have no plan whatsoever to go out dancing, as seems to be the only option as far as nightlife here, and since it was gross out today we couldn't just go to the beach, so i feel like i'm going to rapidly run out of ideas as to how to spend my time. i used up my "i'll sit around and play guitar while you go out" night on the second night here, so i'm kind of at a loss. some relatives suggested ("hilariously", but discomfitingly as they are decades and decades older than me [and this went for both men and women, which naturally also depressed me]) that i should find an argentinian girl who is sweet (cue them miming a big butt) and nice (cue them miming large breasts). uhhhh.

....) that brings me to my next point: communication. trust me, i'm trying to get by as best i can, but let's face it: i spent 15 years taking spanish, speaking spanish on a daily basis, hearing spanish, etc., and i have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that i can't do it. plus, going to latin america doesn't magically make me outgoing, so it's not like i'm going to wander up to some people and befriend them with my hopelessly rudimentary spanish skills.(1) so, i mean, what can i do? i feel like an ugly american waste of space, but fuck, it's 11pm and lunch was at 5pm and i don't want to eat again or go to a club or frankly meet people. so what am i doing here?? all my visions of disliking traveling with relatives as a child are playing through my head, but that's just me being neurotic. and i can't even be neurotic in spanish.

so, we'll see. we may have more family around, and i hope the weather gets better so i can wander off to the beach. maybe there are american tourists(2) here that i can meet and dislike. i am kicking myself that i didn't introduce myself to steve's doppleganger yesterday. maybe it was my weird faith that all moustache-sporting people are wise(3), but i feel like he would have known the thing to do.

i have not ruled out busking with neutral milk hotel songs. let's all hope, for the sake of the argentinians, that it doesn't come to that.

see you soon america! te extrano.

footnotes:
(1): it also doesn't particularly help that i've structured my entire personality around being "funny" and "charming" or whatever weak approximation i actually am, so communication is especially important. i can't, i don't know, flex at people. that's how other people communicate, right? i'm basing this purely on watching MTV spring break specials while in middle school but i have sort of a hunch that i'm a little right.

(2): big ups to h-burg

(3): they have to be, right? they were wise enough to grow a moustache!

alecsander trip diary vol 1

2009-12-25T21:54:00.004-05:00

hola, blog. me llamo al;ec.

i'm in uruguay, in this adorable british-style hotel, and it's been a long-ass two days. let me try to begin at the beginning:

we had christmas morning on christmas eve, which was wonderful, and headed out to the airport around 1:30pm. Hour zero.

traveling with abuela, hermana, padre, and my brand new sunglasses which i am in love with because it turns out i'm extremely borgeois-y, whoops, sorry class warriors-- i'm hopping off the bus for some lanvin shit. naturally we arrive with a ton of time on our hands, and the stress meter for the companeros is probably a 7 or 8, for no discernible reason. my overall goal is to make sure everyone feels comfortable without micromanaging each other, and it's going poorly; i settle for an overhot cappuccino. by the time it cools down and i drink it, i feel a little better. we leave madre at the security gate (she's got a week off with just the cats and her fifty-eighth masters thesis), and go through-- it takes me 30 seconds, including random screening patdown(1), and wait for the rest to catch up, which takes forever. console myself with an unexpectedly large sam adams at the gate, which interacts wonderfully with the cappuccino and lack of lunch in my stomach, and getting on the plane is cheerful, as is the flight to miami.

hour five: bienvenidos a miami(2). given that it's christmas eve, we walk through the terminal as the shutters on every restaurant fall like dominos. this causes great consternation among the members of my family who are more food-driven than i am, which is to say all of them, so the companero stress meter increases one tick every time we try to get food as they close the places down, so it's at approximately 900. i walked around the terminal looking for a beer. oh, btw, we don't board the plane until hour nine, so, yeah. simmering. i think about my sunglasses for a while. larry king is playing on a tv screen with the sound on, and it's one of those animal episodes, so basically it's monkeys climbing all over a lizard. things are a little surreal.

hour nine: on the plane. do make say think playing on ipod. neck pillow. 9hr flight, 11pm to 8am (11am local time). ready to sleep.

hour nine and one quarter: ipod out of batteries. baby crying and running through the aisles without parents bothering to run after her. neck pillow is making my neck sweaty. first world problems.(3)

hour eighteen: land in uruguay. not exactly well rested, but not feeling horrendous. the customs women are all beautiful.(4) i'm starting to notice a creeping understanding of where i come from, because i see people who look indefinably more like me than americans, yet they're all speaking spanish.

hour twenty: at the hotel. it's gorgeous. two stories, ivy-covered, british-style. we have a terrace on our room. hugo chavez stayed here two weeks ago-- he signed the guestbook, and there are pictures next to his signature page of him signing it. he has a cool signature. i'll see if i can upload it.

hour twenty two: we go over to meet up with some relatives. they are wonderful, and i can understand almost 90% of what they are saying, and i even get some on-the-ground information about uruguayan politics and talk a bit about american politics in spanish.(5) meet some tiny cousins; they are SO CUTE and really friendly. i taught martina (who can't be more than one and a half) how to fist bump and explode. she loves this game. hearing young kids speak in spanish is adorable and embarrassing because they speak so much better than i do. it takes an hour to leave, duh. uruguayan goodbye.

hour thirty one: back at the hotel. nap and dinner were mostly uneventful, but the companero stress level has been blissfully low. god, am i tired. we're going to punta del este tomorrow, and i've got absolutely no idea what else is going to go on while we're here, but i'll try to hit some of the fun highlights. i'm making mental notes. i figure since i never used this as a tour blog the least i could do is tell you minute details about the things that i notice, though the footnotes should hopefully help to keep the main story thread.

footnotes
(1): the TSA guy patting me down was middle aged, glasses, moustache, and when i saw him, slight smile. he explains that he is going to give me a limited patdown, and i say that i'm glad i won the contest. naturally, my pants are ... reasonably fitted. i understand his wry expression. we part ways.

(2): my dad doesn't realize this is a will smith song as he says this repeatedly. naturally.

(3): the guy sitting in front of me may as well be steve's long lost relative. he's got a waxed handlebar moustache, about steve's height and build, carrying a small-body martin guitar, seems like a really nice dude. i wanted to befriend him, but, you know. i didn't. i did, however, almost get a picture of him to photoshop into jeter family pictures.

(4): one looked like a uruguayan natalie portman. this is what i mean by indefinably more like me than americans-- uruguay is strange. we talked with other family members today about which ones, when in europe, are spoken to in english first and which are spoken to in spanish. anita, who is tall and has red hair and constantly is addressed in english, speaks only enough english to know when this is happening and set people straight.

(5): the problem is that none of us have slept more than 4 hours, so focusing on understanding what everyone is saying, especially as things get louder and louder and more chaotic, and trying to speak (speak!) spanish, is utterly exhausting. i, and we, felt a little rude but our exhaustion was showing on our faces.

gone gone gone

2009-12-24T11:29:00.004-05:00

vol. 2 of amazing things today

2009-12-22T14:14:00.003-05:00

"we have, uh, barry from DC is calling-- go ahead, barry."

"i have some questions about traffic in northern virginia"

ok this is unbelievably good

2009-12-22T13:38:00.000-05:00

various things that make me feel

2009-12-20T12:50:00.009-05:00

late to every party

2009-12-14T16:14:00.004-05:00

the rough story of my weekend in three cryptic songs that i really like, two of which i heard today:

ugly sweaters and all: come one come on

c'mon rick!: the guy you didn't want to invite came and got drunk

the fall of rome: the next morning; give me my sunday, and every day, to myself

cause every win on this record's hard won

2009-12-10T10:53:00.009-05:00

i was thinking about how much i love the wrens today, and i remembered there's a pre-album version of "this boy is exhausted" -- so, it's history lesson time. take a seat.

pre-album version came out on a drive-thru records comp in 1999. this was a mere 2-3 years after they'd been screwed over, but a stunningly short 3 years from when silver came out (when they used to put records out, you know, pretty frequently). so it's kind of punk rock sounding and wonderful, and some of the lyrics were different, but the main difference between this and what ended up on the meadowlands in 2003 was the chorus: the 1999 version features charles singing "i will never give up / this boy is exhausted," whereas the meadowlands version just has a guitar playing the melody followed by them singing "this boy is exhausted." that and there are a few painful new lines: "a VP's faith is one single long;" "the woven strap wins the galloway girls;" "every win on this record's hard won." yeah, this is a pretty autobiographical song.

check out the difference (ignore the shitty usermade video). 1999:

and 2003:

and, if you dare, remember that THIS BAND HAS BEEN AROUND FOR 20 YEARS. let me repost a great picture of them from 1991 plus the band commentary, from their website:

"Now, we don’t usually condone the zestier language here, but just look at this fucking mess. There are airline disasters less grisly.

Charles has given new meaning to the old sexist phrase ‘nice knobs’. It now means ‘knees’. He’s also going a little heavy on the “She Blinded Me with Rest-stop Sunglasses and Short-Pants” and looks, not so much further back in the photo, as he does much, much smaller than everyone else.
As if Kevin’s imagining him.

Kev has shed the top half of his exoskeleton to reveal the world’s tightest wristwatch and a surprising commitment to ‘Lite’ beer. But that’s all to distract us from a more sinister truth – Kevin Whelan…is a Centaur and the folded jumpsuit hides his bottom horsey half.

Jerry is mulling over an especially tough call on the last corner kick while moonlighting as the most intensely motivated salesperson at Foot Locker.

He in turn, is wearing the Pope Gregory hat – a stunning 28” likeness of Greg rendered in felt and beaver fur.
Water-repellent. Reversible. Sleeveless.
Beautiful.

Good thing there was a camera there at the exact moment the four of us beamed in to lay claim to Least Cool Band in the Universe."

yes. so wonderful. i am going to move to new york so i can take guitar/recording/awesomeness lessons from them.

seriously

2009-12-07T16:23:00.003-05:00

don't fuck around with me and fried tofu. you want a spicy marinade? i will give you a spicy marinade that will make you wish you were never born because you don't have enough taste buds to fully appreciate its majesty.

big staahz

2009-12-03T12:22:00.003-05:00

check this out:

O! the confessional singer! Just because you stick yourself in a bedroom and record very personal things about how hard life is for you, you think people will respond any other way – with this total indifference? If it wasn’t so specifically based around all, you know, you’re shitty last couple of years – none of it your fault, of course – and you didn’t call all of it Woe Is Me, maybe all your woes wouldn’t get a big F.U. Keep it to yourself.

GOTCHA SUCKA! not talking about me, though unwittingly may have been talking about me several years ago. glad i bought those pedals and those new shoes, eh? in actual fact, peter squires was really good and knowing about his faux-seriousness-- a song including a call-and-response line BURN! (WITCH!) was prefaced by the lines "while you were on that farm you must have eaten deadly nightshade and turned into a witch / because you look like a witch, you act like a witch, and you've been riding around on a broom / and so the only thing i can do is shoot flaming arrows at you."

maybe you had to be there, but he was a real nice guy and the songs were winning.

the real money quote (buried lede? [nut graf??!?]) was this:

There’s promise in DC’s Alecsander minimal folk-electronica blend.

sweet! i've got to meet that guy! wait, it's actually me and steve. great blog, though! i'm not sure where the promise comes from, but it may be that they got some shred of goodness out of the varied crap i've posted on the internet. either way, it's nice to get recognized a little and it was wonderful to see so many people at the show.

speaking of bands i want to meet: hi, the zombies! time to get out the music discovery formula!! let's see... formed in 1961, my friend emily's favorite band she mentioned to me ten million years ago, underappreciated, broke up before their biggest hits, funny-looking members, cult classic, wes anderson soundtracked, etc etc etc. pretty much right in my wheelhouse. but, FUCK they are good. (fun fact: peter played a cover of "this will be our year" to end his set. synergy!) you can bet that the new animal collective EP and the zombies will dominate my last.fm for the foreseeable future. here's a video with some really heartbreaking/warming family super8 footage.

joe lieberman defenestration fanfic

2009-11-25T13:50:00.004-05:00

need i say more? (other than it's written by steve coll of the new yorker, and that it's IMMENSELY SATISFYING)

i'm weighted by thinkin'

2009-11-25T11:37:00.006-05:00

i suppose i could write why i like this song so much, but in light of giving thanks and the upcoming weekend festivities and everything, i'll just give credit where credit is due from the pfork review: this is a great summary of why this song is wonderful.

"Graze" flows directly into "What Would I Want? Sky", a song that samples Grateful Dead's "Unbroken Chain" and is easily among the most warm, likeable, and melodic tracks Animal Collective have recorded. It refracts Aquarian optimism through a modern sense of uncertainty, undercutting the loop's jovial lilt with a tricky structure and lyrics that seem confused about what will happen next. "Sky" contains the first officially licensed sample of the Dead, and it's the best marketing move the band's organization has made since they greenlighted Cherry Garcia. It's not easy to take a cut-up voice and make it the centerpiece of a tune, and it's harder still to sing along with it in a way that doesn't sound forced. But "What Would I Want? Sky" sounds as natural as something that grew out of the earth.

i think the best way to tell good things is by whether they feel as natural as something that grew out of the earth.

it's been a long time since you've been around

2009-11-23T14:32:00.007-05:00

1) new things on the myspace, which will eventually be the primary myspace, in anticipation of this show on tues. dec. 1:

2) thanksgiving! get to see relatives/my dear sister, who is now in college, which is a deeply unsettling fact.

3) speaking of deeply unsettling: 5 year high school reunion friday. how this will affect turducken is to be determined. it's just going to be so, so strange.

it's weird how things come back intermittently this way. mark twain, apocryphally: "History doesn't repeat itself-- at best it sometimes rhymes."

also, for good measure, i sort of love this song:

the windows are shaking and so are my bones

2009-11-19T12:34:00.007-05:00

my dreams are back! fuck that. i really, really don't want to wake up every morning having to remember that things aren't that good. stupid brain. walkmen:

I Lost You - The Walkmen

also: URUGUAY.

a place that is cold and dark and close to my heart

2009-11-17T16:00:00.004-05:00

beach house - norway

when the background vocals come in, try humming "all my love is sailing to norway" from that interpol song-- perfect.

i've got no more baggage / i threw all my old things away

2009-11-14T23:26:00.005-05:00

the new walkmen album (new to me, several months old to all others) is amazing. i keep thinking about ways to write about it to entice you to listen to it. i haven't settled on one yet. until then, consider this an utterly worthy addition to the false optimism list. maybe a team captain.

New Country - The Walkmen

also, uruguay won tonight, 1-0. not so bad, right?

right?

...

how to make your baby disappear completely

2009-10-27T11:06:00.006-04:00

perfect rainy day music. i am quite upset my google image search for "invisible baby" did not come up with anything good, but i will keep looking.

rockabye baby radiohead

UPDATE:

i did find this, which combines thom yorke with ed o'brien piss-taking with courage wolf; that's pretty good, all things considered.

www.blog.com

2009-10-24T15:41:00.006-04:00

...is what i typed in when trying to get here to post about how much i like emily haines. well done, me. i think that says some very interesting things about my subconscious conception of my place in the universe; interesting insofar as they make me feel fucking selfish and stupid.

which is a good segue into how good metric is! (aside: if i had to calculate how many years it takes me to worship a band after everybody else knows and loves them, it's usually somewhere between 5 and 50, with a few outliers [either new bands or brahms, which skew from -2 months to 150 years]. yeah, i'm lame.) i just read an article about how james cameron, in addition to being a huge dickhead and control freak, loves, marries, and makes action heroes of super strong women, which i think is awesome. everybody knows i like emily haines and the soft skeleton, because, duh, basically unaccompanied depressive piano music!, but sometimes you just want to rock the fuck out to somebody who is justifiably acidic, sometimes angry, sometimes vulnerable, and in general a total fucking badass. i love everything she does.

Combat Baby - Metric

"ever since you have been gone, it's all caffeine free faux-punk fatigue." YES. "no one here wants to fight me like you do." DOUBLE YES. maybe jemina pearl is going to grow into a version of emily haines?? one hopes.

Hustle Rose - Metric

great synth riff, great middle that showcases her unbelievably beautiful voice, oh, and a subject matter that huuuurts. "remind me not to feel a thing."

Love Is A Place - Metric

does this not sound like an encore? i love great closing tracks (what people are made of by modest mouse comes to mind) and this kills it. also a great example of the twisty, half-step songwriting that she does so well.

Calculation Theme - Metric

my 2nd-most played song on itunes. duh.

oh also here's a playlist: does this work better?

metric blog post 2009 10 24

maybe in a few years i will check out their other records!! DON'T RUSH ME

false optimism

2009-10-23T10:38:00.006-04:00

i've been listening to a lot of kid a recently, since i bought it from lala (which i love, in case you were wondering) for $1.99. optimistic came on first this morning, and in honor of the recent recurrence of my horrendous stress dreams (a sample from just today: i slept through our big conference, which is coming up; came home on the train after that and it turned out it was christmas, and i didn't get anyone anything) i thought of making a list of my favorite fake-optimism songs.

at some point i realized that list is really, really long.

but here's a first crack. i'm trying lala embeds, because they are reliable, and you can get your requisite one listen out of them for free. if you want to download them, go to hypemachine.

Optimistic - Radiohead

comment: uhhhh, duh.

Bows + Arrows - The Walkmen

the least convincing "nothing's wrong" i've ever heard.

Used To Be - Beach House

she's arguing with herself at the end! sounds just like my head, except for way more beautiful. also, i could have posted almost any beach house song for this theme.

Here It Comes - Modest Mouse

one of my most favorite, most upbeat modest mouse songs. yet: "you always told me life's a dam that breaks, well, here it comes"; "keep it clean and no one's ever won"; and, of course, "the place and the time where we knew everything could go wrong"

Slow Show - The National

i always thought this was a no-brainer, but i can't tell you how many people i've had to convince that this is NOT A HAPPY SONG.

Waitin' For A Superman [Mokran...

the absolute, definitive, best version of this fantastic song. also, it's probably about jesus, or the messiah? i think that counts for bonus points.

so, yeah. that makes a pretty good front half of a mix-- and if these seem like very typical al;ec songs, and the type of songs i listen to all the time, that's because THEY ABSOLUTELY ARE.

false optimism

i'll never turn my body clock back

2009-10-20T11:23:00.002-04:00

two bon iver covers

2009-10-19T14:51:00.003-04:00

one is awesome and epic

and the other made me really sad and wistful all of a sudden

addendum

2009-10-16T16:36:00.005-04:00

this appears to work with pictures of will oldham as well.

teh kitteh priciple

2009-10-16T12:07:00.002-04:00

david roberts is a new hero of mine. he writes for grist, an awesome enviro blog. he's got a sweet beard. he blogs about music sometimes. and he has followed a very important principle of getting people to listen to you and understand what you're talking about: pute pictures of cute things in your reports. this could well be called the sprigings principle.

exhibit a: bunnies

exhibit b: puppies

see? don't you feel smarter now?

wait...

i mean,

yeah. you feel smarter now.

WE'RE NUMBER TIED FOR FIFTH!! WE'RE NUMBER TIED FOR FIFTH!!

2009-10-15T12:12:00.003-04:00

as you all probably know, my homeland has won two World Cups. what? you didn't know? YOU DO NOW:

yeah. TIMES TWO. and, since the US tied Costa Rica at the last minute last night, Honduras qualified for the cup, El Salvador (sorry mt. pleasant neighbors!) were knocked out, and Uruguay plays Costa Rica in two play-in games for World Cup qualification in November.

i hope you didn't expect to hang out that day. i will be busy draping myself in Uruguayan flags and inventing disparaging things to say about Costa Rica. i would imagine Steve is going to bear the brunt of this.

regularly scheduled programming

2009-10-14T12:32:00.003-04:00

bahahahaha
getting my hair cut tomorrow.
maybe posting some Great Moments in Sentence History.
we'll see.

blog of fame

2009-10-14T12:27:00.003-04:00

i think the new year can start now. let's have a good weekend, eh? trivia tonight.

it's the end of the discussion that just goes round and round

2009-10-13T16:00:00.003-04:00

and it ain't no use

2009-10-01T15:32:00.003-04:00

oh how the days will rain on you

2009-09-25T11:41:00.004-04:00

i know i've just been reposting things from pitchfork, but there has been so much good stuff recently that it's worth it. plus, that's what blogs are for.

i wish i could embed these, but you can just keep this page open and stream these as many times as you want. they're bootleg acoustic versions of two great woods songs; the album versions are much more psychedelic, but these expose a) how good a singer he is, and b) how strong the songs are when they're stripped of their hazy trappings.

to compare, here's rain on and to clean from the album.

and here's a very sunshiney A-side from a single of theirs called the dark. such a good band!

a thousand years no getting rid of me

2009-09-21T12:24:00.003-04:00

there are no words

2009-09-21T10:21:00.000-04:00

this is why i do what i do

2009-09-14T11:14:00.004-04:00

save the climate... save the beer. it's that easy.

it's been a long time since you've been around

2009-09-11T12:56:00.003-04:00

i have been obsessed with modest mouse, even more than usual, lately.

lots of other things have been happening.

but, the real update is: LOOK AT THIS WEBSITE JESSICA SHOWED ME IT IS SO GREAT

it's just like everything was evidence of broken time

2009-08-28T19:56:00.003-04:00

on the bright side: i have a very, very large well of good karma built up. this makes me feel vaguely better:

give ourselves some time ten years from the day

2009-08-20T19:59:00.002-04:00

don't tell me this song isn't unbelievably good.

what's in store? we don't know just yet

2009-08-09T17:32:00.004-04:00

i only really listen to sad bastard music. this is a well-documented fact. that's not to say that i listen to all the same style of music, or that all the music i like makes me sad, but there are very few flat-out joyous songs that i really like.

bands like architecture in helsinki usually irritate the crap out of me. 8 piece? you better be playing post-rock. however, these bands are great for singles. GREAT. because i don't have to listen to the 10 songs on the record i hate, just the one or two that really do it for me.

so, when what's in store just came on at peregrine, i just put a big smile on my big dumb face. so many good things in this song: fake-emo lyrcs ("carve your name into my arm / 'cause i long / to feel your name blood red") sung in the most positive way possible; slow beginning with meandering synth-strings; slow-build; guitar riff doubled by glockenspiel; boy-girl love-barf chorus that gets stuck in your bone marrow for days; and horns, oh the horns. the end of this song sounds like a shenanigans song. like old relationships, that hurt for a while, and now i've just come to embrace it as an awesome part of my life that is over. i swear to god i never want to use horns in anything, but the end of this song makes a pretty strong case.

it's nice to have a few songs filled with unadulterated joy up your sleeve for times when being happy comes around. today, barring yet another catastrophe in the next two hours, is one of those times.

a few others on my personal list:

second-time post! that's how good this is:

and, of course, jessica's ringtone, the happiest song i am aware of:

my sister is the best

2009-08-01T16:09:00.005-04:00

belated, because she just sent them to me: my sister put these post-it notes on the bathroom mirror in ffx the night before my GRE, for which i had to wake up at 6am, to wish me luck.

he hasn't dropped them, forgot them, or anything

2009-07-26T14:41:00.006-04:00

i spent seven hours at tysons yesterday shopping for work clothes. have to go back today to make some returns due to either bloodlust or near-brain-death; i can't remember which. also i went to h&m last, which was dumb, because i could probably get everything i needed there. ah, well, feeling like a real person a little bit is kind of nice, even if shopping isn't.

my birthday was awesome, thanks for that; everything after my birthday has been an almost (but not quite) hilarious shitstorm. but, eh. life continues.

tuesday is workday.

i love every single song WHY? does. check this new one. there are so many hooks! and so many crazy, dense lyrics! and piano! sigh. here's an example of one of the better vignettes in this song:

i wanna speak at an intimate decibel /
with the precision of an infinite decimal /
to listen up and send back a true echo /
of something forever felt but never heard /
i want that sharpened steel of truth in every word

THAT is what you get when you have a background in hip hop and a prolific brain full of melodies. and are crazy. with all the other stuff in this song, you could almost miss that startling piece.

i also wanted to post the mokran remix of waitin' for a superman by the flaming lips, but i can't find it anywhere. i know i'm 10 years late to this party, but still, it's amazing, listen to it.

thinking the big thoughts

2009-07-21T22:01:00.002-04:00

getting drunk and watching NOVA Science Now tonight has raised one huge, alarming question in my mind:
why do i not get drunk and watch NOVA Science Now every night??

bored of trade part 3

2009-07-12T16:48:00.005-04:00

man, that was fun. notable:

-seeing all my friends, or at least a great many, in one place.
-the awesome way lindsay puts these things on. it's not a coolness contest all the time. just art, some tiny wine solo cups, a new canopy in the back yard, and loud, awesome bands inside.
-speaking of: BLDGS and the laughing man were really, really good. obviously i love them as people, but both bands were so good. and punishingly loud. i had paper-towel-ears the whole night.
-sweating all the time! this was not good; it was notable. everyone was doing it.
-meeting my friends' cool friends. for instance, it turns out that the one and only jason has started playing bass for seas, who i liked anyway and know some folks who like, and i finally made the connection between people-i-kind-of-know and people-who-are-in-that-band. good! always a fun realization.
-more music-related fun realizations: ian svenonius came, and i was standing in the entry walkway, and he greeted me as if i were an old friend before realizing he didn't know me. super nice guy. sixteen-year-old me was freaking out a little. he also knows my friends, so i guess we could hypothetically also be friends. sixteen-year-old me is freaking out a little about that, too.
-jason and i orchestrating song-based fistbump cues: we blow it up, magnet it back (like usual), and hold it until we both get done singing the same part of the same song. we tried it with "bicycle" by queen and "help!" by the beatles. mixed results due to shaky execution; awesome idea.
-spaaten optimator.
-bike riding.
-liz professing equal amounts of incredulity and happiness hearing about my new life stuff.
-receiving a text message this morning from dave that read, simply, "canadian girlfriend."

i think this will do fine in lieu of a post bragging about how lots of good stuff is happening in my life. last night was a small, great slice of happy.

fuck you, GRE

2009-07-04T17:23:00.004-04:00

not only am i going to own you, but i'm going to lose ten pounds. this is what i've decided after feeling utterly awful for the last few days.

it reminds me of this dumb commercial. i saw it frequently as i was watching hulu videos while feeling awful. it's for office depot or something, and it has all the hallmarks of a BOGUSKY! piece of work, because it's stupid and sort of frighteningly violent and off-putting, and no big corporation should have paid for it. but i laughed. so, just imagine it says HAL9000 Komputar-Based MultipleChoise Exam instead of recession.

thursday mornin comin down

2009-07-02T15:33:00.004-04:00

thanks to everyone who could come out yesterday. it was really, really fun.

i find myself today looking for the right music to get back into a life-mode that's not utterly disrupted by show-playing. as much fun as we had, it's necessary to re-normalize life. and for me, today, these two songs!

and

beach house -- lovelier girl (you'll have to stream it from here)

you might say: wait, these are unbelievably depressing! to you, maybe. i was thinking about kris kristofferson's 'sunday mornin comin down' but all the videos for that are from the 70s and 80s mariachi-band era. i just love the late-era johnny cash, and the fact that will oldham sings backup is just great. plus, despite everything, i think it's a happy song.

the beach house song is one of my many, many favorites. i could listen to them forever. this one is about distance and sadness and all that stuff, but it's also a happy song.

i think, if i were to complete the trifecta, i'd listen to those two in that order and add 'love comes to me' by bonnie "prince" billy. that'd really get me ready for life again. i think johnny cash, in the aforementioned mariachi-band and sickly-sweet-strings period could rip this song with june. if only.

//
nice. is that the wind?
yeah.
//

you guys have gotten so blog-lazy!!

2009-06-30T16:10:00.003-04:00

what, do you have jobs???

either way, i will try to fill the gaps by alternating asinine, self-serving, and self-servingly asinine posts. what else have you come to expect???

so. show tomorrow. please come out, it'll be fun. July 24th will bring a show at DC Mini Gallery with some people who i dearly love as people and as bands. Greenland. The Laughing Man. The Alphabet. yes please. fuck yes please.

also, i put up a new song or two on the myspace. good preview for future shows. it's unfortunate, but steve grew his moustache back after his wolverine facial hair, but it's now an adapted Ambrose Burnside, so i'm ok with it.

hugz

the sweet taste of victory

2009-06-24T23:00:00.001-04:00

we won trivia tonight. convincingly. and won the best team name.

i officially feel good about life again. it must be residual good luck from that bird who shat on my white shirt yesterday while i was having lunch.

muscle memory

2009-06-23T14:35:00.003-04:00

i made a new song at the coffee shop. i'm sure the other patrons thought i was insane with my headphones on as i mashed my keyboard for hours, as if i were typing the world's longest gibberish email.

luckily, it sounds like the internal workings of the gmail servers, or a robot heart, or some such thing. call it an instrumental interlude.

czech it

also i redid my myspaces because the old ones were broken. ALSO, artomatic show on july 1, minigallery show july 24, galaxy hut probably mid-august.

don't break my dreams

2009-06-22T00:09:00.002-04:00

whale song

2009-06-20T12:55:00.002-04:00

ok the b side from the aforementioned new modest mouse single is called "whale song."

coincidentally, it's AWESOME. like, old-school modest mouse awesome. three-minutes-of-classic-modest-mouse-guitar-noodling-before-lyrics awesome.

that's all. off to sister's grad party.

hey! a story about twitter that doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out!

2009-06-18T17:13:00.003-04:00

pete hoekstra: american hero

also, this is a good use for twitter. someone told me, trying to convince me that i should join (which i certainly will not), that i'd be good for it because it's good for making quips.

1. i can make quips just fine in real life, thank you.
2. i already have a BLOG. how much less interesting could i be?
3. if you were interested in what i had to say about a subject, just make up something that sounds like me. it'll probably be just as (un)funny.

i think conan has the right idea: