big staahz

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

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'

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

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

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

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

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?

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