Sunday, October 29, 2006

SUNDAY SHUFFLE #10

Wherein the only recurring feature reaches double digits and no extra chatter is necessary...

1. White Wave/Portastatic (8)
2. Exodus Damage/John Vanderslice (2)
3. My Sweet Annette/Drive-By Truckers (2)
4. Tame/Pixies (2)
5. What Happened.../Grandaddy (5)
6. Alec Eiffel/Pixies (1)
7. Moral Centralia/Harvey Danger (23)
8. Black Gown/The Lemonheads (6)
9. Eterna (concerning the end of the world) (ps 30:9)/The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers (17)
10. Last Days of My Bitter Heart/Eels (6)

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

GEEKED

Got a couple goodies in the mail today - Justice League Unlimited Season 1 and Jeff Tweedy: Live in the Pacific Northwest - and both make me very happy. Grant and I have already started on the first one, even though we're still in the middle of three animated box sets already (Simpsons, Superman, and Batman). We watched the first two episodes, "Initiation" (which sets up the new concept of many heroes and features Green Arrow, a personal fave) and "For the Man Who Has Everything" (an adaptation of the classic Alan Moore story). The second one I will get to as soon as I can because...well, come on. I'm such a Tweedy fanboy it's not even funny. This all came courtesy of a preorder at Circuit City online (we had a credit) - it's so cool it actually showed up today!

Sunday, October 22, 2006

SUNDAY SHUFFLE #9

Number nine...number nine...number nine...

1. Bryte Side/Pernice Brothers (6) - Last played on Sept. 12

2. Neptune's Net/M. Ward (11) - Last played on Oct. 21 (yesterday!)

3. Marie Floating Over the Backyard/Eels (1) - Last played whenever I listened to Blinking Lights and Other Revelations on disc

4. The Bleeding Heart Show/The New Pornographers (1) - Last played whenever I listened to Twin Cinema on disc

5. El Otro Lado/Josh Rouse (6) - Last played on Oct. 8 (during Sunday Shuffle #7)

6. You Must Build A Fire/Crooked Fingers (3) - Last played on Aug. 19

7. [Untitled Track]/The Black Keys (7) - Last played on Aug. 2

8. These Are The Fables/The New Pornographers (4) - Last played on Sept. 28

9. Ballad of Big Nothing/Elliott Smith (12) - Last played on Aug. 21

10. Eterna (concerning the end of the world) (ps. 30:9)/The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers (16) - Last played on Oct. 7

Sunday, October 15, 2006

SUNDAY SHUFFLE #8

I'm doing this a bit later in the day than usual...it's 5:00 CDT. We've had a busy weekend with a wedding we attended in Indianapolis yesterday and spending time with my family (my brother came in for the weekend and my dad's birthday was the other day). I also wanted to finish the book I was reading (#29, leaving me 3 more to try and get to in October and it's already the 15th!) before getting to my regular (and almost only these days) feature. So, here's the music...

1. Killer Parties/The Hold Steady (10) - I've listened to Almost Killed Me a few times directly on the iPod, so the relatively low number here shouldn't throw you. Craig Finn was talking about Charlemagne from the get-go...

2. This Isn't Farmlife/The Essex Green (10) - Wow, I've gotten 2 songs to double digits right from the start. I burned a hardcopy of Cannibal Sea and have listened to it many times that way. It still remains one of the pleasant surprises of the year for me.

3. The Concept/Teenage Fanclub (1) - "She wears denim wherever she goes/ So she's going to get some records by the Status Quo/ Oh yeah." Ah, good stuff.

4. Ammunition for a Bolt-Action Heart/The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers (3) - From The Mother of Love Emulates the Shapes of Cynthia. Long titles rock!

5. Magnetic Heaven/Slobberbone (11) - A nice instrumental from Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today and my third double digit song only halfway through.

6. The Thrilling of Claire/The National (7) - This is from the bonus disc that came with the reissue of Alligator earlier this year. I just downloaded it since I already had the disc. And you know, I keep forgetting I have it. I shouldn't because this song is just as good as the stuff on the album.

7. Sooner or Later/Marah (5) - I guess it's the day for the albums with long titles to be represented; If You Didn't Laugh You'd Cry fits the bill here. I thought I'd heard a few months back that there might be a new one from them again this year but I haven't heard anything since, so I guess it will be next year.

8. Per Second Second/The Wrens (1) - The Meadowlands is another album I loaded in for the mix I made a few weeks back. This is probably the weakest song of a fantastic set of music.

9. Box Full of Letters/Wilco (4) - This is the song that introduced me to Wilco, that made me like Wilco (even though I didn't buy A.M. at the time; Being There was my first Wilco record). Thank you, WXRT (why do you suck so much now?). And yes, this shuffle almost ended without a Wilco tune - can you believe it?

10. Heavy Metal Drummer (demo)/Wilco (8) - Obviously not. It's fated! Fated!

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

eMUSIC ROUND EIGHT

Before I talk about my most recent round of eMusic downloads, I need to mention something I left off last time. I forgot to note I grabbed Elliott Smith's "Division Day" and "No Name #6," which were originally released as a single. Not my favorite of his but still well worth owning.

I also need to note that I upgraded my subscription this time around, as there was just so much new music coming out. I'm now paying $14.99 for 65 downloads, which is still a great bargain. I would have had to pay that much for only one of these in the store, so I'm very happy with the bargain. Here's what I grabbed...

Ben Kweller/Ben Kweller - Sure, Ben's lyrics can be a little goofy but then they can also be really sharp too. He's in fine form musically (as usual) with some more piano-based songs this time around. It's a more mature album maybe and that's not a bad thing at all.

Joseph Arthur/Nuclear Daydream - I got his previous album, Our Shadows Will Remain, for Christmas a few years back and upon first listen I thought I had made a huge mistake in asking for it. Turned out I was wrong. I didn't have any such problem with his new album. It's a bit more stripped down musically but still fairly dark in the lyrics. It all sounds good.

The Hold Steady/Boys and Girls in America - I'm planning on doing a more in-depth review of this at some point, so let's just say I like it and leave it at that for now.

Pernice Brothers/Live A Little - My anticipation for this album sent into a huge Pernice kick that I'm still not over. I'd like to talk about this one more too but I will say this - you need to get it. Seriously.

The Lemonheads/The Lemonheads - Yeah, it's just Evan Dando and some new recruits (including J. Mascis...and did you see Dinosaur Jr. is coming out with a new album next year?) but it still sounds all Lemonhead and why wouldn't it? Not that album of the year but I'm enjoying listening to it.

The Brokedown/The Dutchman's Gold - I pay attention to press releases from Merge Records and one such mentioned they had signed this band and would put out their full-length debut in January. Well, I thought it they were good enough for Merge they would probably be good enough for me so I grabbed their debut EP. And I was right. By the way, they've now changed their name to The Broken West thanks to another band threatening legal action or some such. I'm sure that other band is nowhere near as good.

The Decemberists/The Tain - How cool is it to have one remaining dowload and then discover that eMusic has this whole EP as one download? Pretty cool. 18 plus minutes of goodness.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

SUNDAY SHUFFLE #7

Let's see how many Wilco songs turn up today, shall we?

1. Smiley Faces/Gnarls Barkley (1) - Jill bought St. Elsewhere the other weekend and loaded it onto iTunes. But I like it too, so I'll count it under my music...at least for today.

2. El Otro Lado/Josh Rouse (5) - The closing track from Subtitulo. Man, that album so early in the year that I tend to forget about it. I shouldn't, because it's good. I burned myself a copy too, so I've listened to it a lot more than seems to be indicated here.

3. Via Chicago/Wilco (5) - Well, that didn't take long. From Summerteeth. I just put the live version of this one on a mix for one of the high schoolers I work with.

4. Jersey Clowns/Josh Rouse (7) - Well, who knew it would be a Josh Rouse two-fer? This one's from Subtitulo as well. Hmm, looks like the shuffle is staying in the "S" section of the albums today.

5. Hang On/Teenage Fanclub (2) - Here's 305 seconds off of Four Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-Six Seconds. Wonder if they'll put out a new album next year...

6. Strahan Has Corralled the Freaks/Centro-Matic (14) - I was running a shuffle yesterday while watching all the baseball games (some days you don't need to hear Joe Morgan or Tim McCarver) and this popped up; now here it is again. Proof that shuffling works or doesn't work? Anyway, this is from Love You Just the Same.

7. Song for Dennis Brown/The Mountain Goats (4) - If I didn't need to work on digesting a dozen new albums (or more) recently, I would be playing Get Lonely all the time. So, I'm pretty high on The Mountain Goats right now. This is from last year's The Sunset Tree.

8. The Other Shoe/Eels (1) - I loaded Blinking Lights and Other Revelations onto iTunes back in January and have just listened to the songs as they came up in shuffles. Obviously, this one hadn't made it until today.

9. Comes A Time/Nada Surf (3) - I don't think I like The Weight Is A Gift quite as much as Let Go but it's still a good album. I think they're akin to Harvey Danger, having that big hit early on and then being forgotten about while turning out good music.

10. Black Gown/The Lemonheads (3) - This is the 2006 version of the group, from the new self-titled album. I just grabbed this from eMusic earlier this week and have only managed a couple listens so far.

So, only one Wilco track. And I actually had something come up that was in double digits. What'll happen next week?

Sunday, October 01, 2006

THE WEEK AHEAD

Big week.

First and foremost are this week's music releases. The Hold Steady. Pernice Brothers. The Decemberists. Beck. Hard to beat that for a new music day, isn't it?

Tuesday brings the season premiere of "Veronica Mars." I actually get to see episodes as they air this year! Wednesday has the season premiere of "Lost" and Friday brings "Battlestar Galactica" (Netflix was making me wait, so I went out and bought the 2 DVD sets for Season 2 and currently have 7 episodes left to watch - I will be caught up!). Plus, the baseball playoffs start this week. Even though my White Sox did not make it, I will watch as much as I can because I love the game.

I will attempt to finish book #28 on the year (Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things) and jump right into book #29 (no idea what that will be yet).

Tomorrow Grant and I have dentist appointments and he starts a drama class at our local community theater guild; Tuesday I have an appointment to talk about getting snipped (yep, we've made the decision). On Wednesday I have to stay a little bit extra at work to teach for a co-worker; another co-worker is in New Orleans on a mission trip all week, which means I'll have to be on top of things even more in the pool. Friday brings an open mic and I'd like to finish some songs and do some new material. And I'm working on Saturday morning again this week.

Big week. I'm looking forward to it.
SUNDAY SHUFFLE #6

Sans commentary today.

1. Looter's Follies/Destroyer (9)
2. Poor People/Marah (3)
3. Outtasite (Outta Mind)/Wilco (6)
4. Salesman at the Day of the Parade/Rogue Wave (4)
5. Muzzle of Bees (live)/Wilco (1)
6. August/John Vanderslice (2)
7. Sister Jack/Spoon (1)
8. Poor Places/Wilco (5)
9. Silver Plate Complaints/Centro-Matic (7)
10. Working Girls (Sunlight Shines)/Pernice Brothers (6)