Blog
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Five Song Mixtapes. 002.
“Indie Autotune”
Auto-tune. Vocoder. A sound we’ve come to associate with the hip-hop and R&B genre, with artists such as Kanye West, Jamie Foxx, T-Pain and others using and abusing the technique. Jay-Z wants it to die, but the indie genre has other plans. Here is a selection of tracks with an interesting and sometimes unexpected use of auto tune. Enjoy!
1. School of Seven Bells Chain
2. Animal Collective Summertime Clothes
3. Discovery Can You Discover?
4. Alaska in Winter Your Red Dress
5. Bon Iver WoodsDownload Mixtape.
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Review – Magnolia Electric Co. – “Josephine”
Rating: 61%
Josephine, the latest offering from Magnolia Electric Co., a band who – when all pistons are firing – are quite hard to criticize, sounds more like an album they might play in the background while writing a Magnolia Electric Co. album. Jason Molina has thrown away more songs than most of his contemporaries have recorded, and may quite possibly be one of the most prolific artists making music today. But is that enough to hold this album together?
At fourteen tracks nearly identical in tempo, structure, meaning and arrangement, Josephine simply goes on for too long. We roll slowly toward the fourth track (“Shenandoah”) and can’t help but wonder whether this will be the slow and painful death it appears it might be. Our fears are realized six songs later, when “Little Sad Eyes,” uses a brush kit and a forgettable melody one too many times; even the funky organ can’t save this one from the mundane. The reimagined, previously released track, “Shiloh,” rolls by, but by this point I fear the album has already slipped between our fingers like a plume of beach sand.
Long gone are the maps of old horizons. Gone are the ghosts they used to ride around with. There are no arrows to pierce our chestnut hearts. And the black rams? All but extinct. John Henry? Nowhere in sight. This whole place used to be dark, now it’s just a dimly lit elevator to purgatory, and the elevator’s just broken down. I want my slide guitar back, Molina. I want the guest vocals, the country swagger. I want the timeless, classic, tragically perfect songs to resurface from the dust and rubble. I want to sing in the shower to a new Magnolia Electric Co. song.
The album is not without its moments, I guess. The opening track, “O! Grace,” not only scores points for including the namesake of my daughter, it’s a promising opener to the album as well; a false prophecy as it turns out, but you get the feeling there is a band at work here, even if for a fleeting moment. “Rock of Ages,” the very next track, takes us to another place and time, harkening back to the sock hops and doo-wops of yesteryear. But at 2:43, one almost wonders if this band is intentionally trying to keep their charms up their sleeves. There is a pleasant roll and drive to “The Handing Down,” where an electric guitar is allowed to come out and play alongside Molina’s crooning, pleading warble. We can feel it, and it works. Why can’t we feel things more frequently?
Molina has mentioned the importance of recording this album. It is an implied album of healing, a chance to confront the unexpected death of original bassist Evan Farrell. I only wish that import transcended the personal meaning, so that we could all lament and heal and rejoice as one. Instead, the album seems more interested in apathy and self-depreciation than with paying triumphant tribute.
While describing a bit of the album’s inspiration, Molina also promised more output in the coming months, and as he is one of my favorite artists currently making music, I will only hope the future delivers on his band’s promise to create more great tunes. Until then, I have about 150 other Molina tracks to keep on repeat. Life isn’t all that uninspired after all.
Mp3. “O! Grace”
Mp3. “The Handing Down”
Mp3. “Rock of Ages” -
Quote of the Week #044
“Hope is a psychological mechanism unaffected by external realities.” – Severian the Torturer
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Universal Health Care, American Style!
Click for Larger Image.
If you like going to the DMV, or think our tax code is like totally awesome, then you’re going to LOVE going to the doctor once the government steps in to rescue our health care system! See you at the doctor’s office… in line… with all of our forms… and three ball point pens… and our birth certificates… and our checkbooks. Yay!
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TOP 5 WORST MAKEOVERS
(CELEBRITIES ONLY)
5. Mickey Rourke – Rourke reportedly states that his plastic surgery was a means to simply correct the imperfections caused by years of amateur boxing. Fair enough. Nose job, no problem. Cheek implants, not really necessary, but I hear he broke a cheekbone. But the lip implants, face lifts, etc. seem to go above and beyond the call of duty.
4. Leona Helmsley – “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” Ms. Helmsley was a tax evading hotel billionaire, and something of a tyrant. The Queen of Mean served 18 months in prison (reporting to the clink on, you guessed it, April 15… tax day). She saved enough of her fortune to succesfully mangle her face, however, before passing away from congestive heart failure at age 87.
She left most of her $4 billion estate to her own charitable trust, $15 million to her brother, $10 million each to two of her four grandchildren. The other two received nothing (allegedly because they did not name any of their children after their grandfather Harry). However, she did set aside $12 million to her dog Trouble. Aww!
3. Joan Rivers – Once the sidekick to late show legend Johnny Carson, Ms. Rivers has been the guinea pig for plastic surgeons since the late 80’s. But when her husband committed suicide just one week after she left him (she was having liposuction when she received the call), some speculated she spent many years and dollars trying to reinvent herself, to be somebody she never was: beautiful.
She is unabashed about having work done, and believes you should spend your money on you (literally). “Better a new face coming out of an old car, than and old face coming out of a new car.” Oh, the irony.
2. Donnatella Versace – Since taking over for her late father Gianni, Donnatella has undergone a series of interesting procedures, the most notable being her lip augmentation, which looks to me like two inntertubes stuffed under her skin then inflated to the point of bursting. Botox forehead, breast implants, and who knows what else, we sort of have to question the taste of this couture fashionista, do we not?
1. Michael Jackson – The recently deceased (cause of death wildly speculative though still under investgation) King of Pop is obviously the most extreme case of a makeover gone awry. We all know of his troubled youth, his abusive father, and his never-ending desire to be a child at heart. But we also know that he used to be a black man.
One of the most important black men in history, as a matter of fact. He brought people of every shape, size and color together in rejoice. All of the infamy did nothing to assuage the troubles lurking beneath the surface. A severe addiction to pain killers, and what many speculate to be a passion to shed his ethnicity, lead to a series of incrementally damaging surgical procedures.
Not only did he lose the ability to not look startled, the ability to smell through his undersized triangular nostrils, and the ability to grow facial hair on his cleft chin without looking like a prepubescent criminal, but he also bleached his skin from head to toe supposedly in order to match the pigment loss caused by an apparent case of vitiligo, a condition also suffered by Chris Smith of the 90’s rap duo Kriss Kross.
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Five Song Mixtapes. 001.
(This is a new section, which I plan to update weekly. Each week I will build a five song playlist around a theme. I will try to be as specific and unexpected as I can, while still offering up cohesive mixes. Enjoy!)
“Houndstooth Blues”
My very first theme is what I’m calling the Houndstooth Blues. Each of these songs conjured images of a lonely Scotsman in his bedroom on a rainy afternoon, thumbing his Houndstooth vest with vacant eyes gazing past his ruddy window sill. If you’re not sure what Houndstooth is, well, nevermind then!
1. Ed Harcourt Shadowboxing
2. Andrew Bird Armchairs
3. Duran Duran Ordinary World
4. July Skies The English Cold
5. Thomas Dybdahl One Day You’ll Dance for Me, New York CityDownload Mixtape.
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Quote of the Week #043
“This one’s for the critics and their disappointed mothers.” – Spencer Krug
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Top Gear – Ken Block
My new favorite TV show? Why have I never heard of this? So wonderfully shot, edited, and even the host is interesting. Gotta love rights-free terms like “Facetube” and “Gamestation”. Ha.
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Grace Says “No Doctor. No.”
Dear Work,
Today was a big day for our daughter Grace; it was the day we decided to upgrade her from a crib to a daybed. It was easy, just remove a front rail and replace it with a single crossbar. Nothing to it. Shortly after converting the bed, we brought her into her room and she jumped right up and got “cozy”. She loved it at once.
Later in the afternoon it was nap time, and we tucked her in with her favorite blanket and mommy’s pillow (you know, because she’s a big girl now).
Fifiteen minutes later, as Erin and I were eating lunch in the dining room directly below Grace’s room, we heard a THUD. We were prepared for the possibility of Grace falling from her bed a few times before getting used to it, of course, but didn’t expect it so soon.
We rushed upstairs to find our two year old bawling on the floor, on her knees, with mommy’s pillow entirely over her head. She had somehow managed to get herself caught between the pillow and the slipcase. No suffocation, mind you, plenty air thru the cotton.
We picked her up and did our normal consoling, the same as we do when she falls on the pavement or bumps her head on a table. But this time was different. This time she wouldn’t hug us like normal. This time she only held onto us with her left arm, keeping her right arm tucked against her little ribcage.
We didn’t like that, so we tested her out to see if anything could get her to loosen up after her understandably traumatic fall. A popsicle maybe? Nope. A walk outside on the grass, perhaps, one of her favorite things? Nope. Nothing was working, she kept nursing that right arm, and crying in surges whenever it was affected.
Erin drove Grace to the hopsital, where she was admitted into the ER and x-rayed, all the while hysterical and in pain. After a couple of hours the results were back. The x-ray had confirmed the doctor’s suspicion:
Grace had fractured her collar bone clean through.
She needed immediate anti-inflammatory medicine along with pain relief. Six hours, a makeshift sling (they don’t make proper slings for two-year-olds), a steady supply of Children’s Motrin and a prescription for Tylenol 3 later, Grace is back in her bed, asleep, for now.
Yes, I turned her bed back into a crib shortly after the incident. Yes, I am harboring a high amount of guilt at the decision to upgrade our daughter’s sleeping situation. And yes, I’d like to work from home tomorrow and be with my daughter in her time of stress and pain.
I hope you understand, as I hate to have to miss coming into work. Please call or write if there is any need for me to be present. I will try and work it out.
Thank you for understanding,
…ryan
UPDATE: We visited the orthopedic doctor today, who gave us an XS sling for her arm, which she doesn’t want to wear but we try and keep it on. She’s doing well today, all things considered. A little hazy from the medicine, but her normal self, with little regard for the golf ball sized red lump on her collar. Doctor things three weeks and she’s back to normal, four days before the pain subsides. Here’s to hoping.
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Quote of the Week #042
“Of all the forces in the universe, the hardest to overcome is the force of habit.” – Terry Pratchett
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Johan Lippowitz w/Natalie Imbruglia
Caveat: It is well established that he does his guitar slides backwards, and it’s well commented on as well. Just a heads up.
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Paulie Jr. vs. CL Smooth
If you know anything about 90’s rap music, you’ll know who CL Smooth is (of the group Pete Rock and CL Smooth). And if you know anything about pop culture, you’ll have heard of American Chopper, and of Paulie Jr. formerly of Orange County Choppers.
And if you’re like me, you’re wondering: “How did I not notice before how much these two guys look alike?”
I know, and I feel your startled reaction just like I felt it earlier this afternoon. But rest easy; I’m on the case, and on the hunt for any other cross-culture dopplegangers out there.
If you have any, please let me know. The more professionally disparate the better.
Youtube. Paulie Jr.
Youtube. CL Smooth. -
New Fleet Foxes: “Blue Spotted Tail”
As we all sit on pins and needles now that Robin Pecknold has cut his hair, trimmed his beard and abandoned his Twitter account, signs that he may have made a wise decision begin to emerge, as demonstrated by this brand new—unaccompanied—Fleet Foxes studio performance for the BBC6.
The song is tentatively called “Blue Spotted Tail,” and even on his own—without the Josh, Casey, Skylar or Christian to wash it with harmonies and echoed instrumentation—the band looks poised to deliver on last year’s promise of continued greatness.
The song itself is a calm, introspective affair, tasked more with asking questions than sharing wisdom. See “Why is life made only for to end?” or “Why in the night sky are the lights on?” as exhibit’s A and B. The way Robin moves from major to minor notes—both with his guitar and with his voice—harkens to the great folk of yesteryear, going back to Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, and Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger before them.
This is timeless music, the hardest kind to make, the best kind to hear.
Mp3. “Blue Spotted Tail”
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Best Album Title of 2009
“No Need to Light a Night Light on a Night Like Tonight”
by Snowglobe.Mp3. “Nothing I Can Do”
Mp3. “Ms. June” -
Addicted to AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com
Sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words. Sometimes they are worth a thousand laughs. I have burned well over 50 calories today on this site. So transcendent. So classic. So timeless.
SO ADDICTIVE!
AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com
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Review – Sharon Van Etten – “Because I Was In Love”
Rating: 75%
When Sharon Van Etten sings “I do,” on the second track, “For You,” from her debut LP, “Because I Was In Love,” we do not imagine altars or fresh flowers, no bridesmaids or groomsmen, no priests or witnesses. Rather, the words slip from somber lips to fill her empty bedroom. Pictures of her beloved lay spread across her sheets, spilling from an up-ended shoebox, tattered from the months spent inside her closet. A pressed rose falls from the diary she’s reading, blood red and bone dry. Mascara runs down her cheeks and the ashtray is full. Empty wine glasses line her side table to the point of falling off.
Whoever he is, he is gone, that much is clear, and we spend eleven tracks tragically learning this fact, listening to her confessions and questions over minimally forlorn arrangements. And we are somehow transfixed, because in one way or another, we have all been there. We have lost someone, whether it be a lover, a friend, a family member. We know the tragedy she issues forth song after song.
But enough hyperbole and metaphor; onto the album.
Recorded in a small studio by Greg Weeks (of the band Espers), “Because I was In Love,” is a melancholy selection of songs, comprised mostly of lazily plucked acoustic guitar with the occasional tambourine, organ, or bass as an accompaniment (never all at once, mind you), the music never truly soars.
I think what kept me hooked on this album after a few listens was her transfixing vocal delivery. I am a sucker for haunting and non-girly female singers (see Marissa Nadler, Alela Diane, Neko Case, Meg Baird), and Van Etten reaches deep inside our rib cage to tug on our heart strings in the most delicate of ways. Using words like melancholy, bittersweet, somber or forlorn to describe her, you may suspect this to be an optimist’s worst nightmare; and you would be partially right. But her melodies and sincerely emotional delivery are just so beautifully heartbreaking to hastily write off in such a fashion.
If you have the patience, Sharon Van Etten will let you glimpse inside her breaking heart, and you will feel an oneness to listen. “I’m a tornado. You are the dust you’re all around,” she sings about halfway into the album; a piece of insight that maybe it wasn’t all her lover’s fault after all.
But her blessing is her curse, as there is no sense of healing or evolution here, just an even set of songs all aimed at the same lonely mantra: “I messed up, I’m lost, and I don’t know how to fix it.” A few rays of sun, even if taunting, may go a long way to round out Van Etten’s repertoire on her sophomore offering. Time will tell.
Mp3. “For You”
Mp3. “Tornado”
Mp3. “I Wish I Knew” -
Burton’s Alice in Wonderland
Disney releases some concept art for Tim Burton’s upcoming reimagining of Alice in Wonderland. I have to say that, even though Ann Hathaway is going to be in this film (who has been omitted from the below photos for reasons of intolerance on my part), I am still very excited about this film.
Oh, and doesn’t Johnny Depp look like Elijah Wood in that photo?
Larger photos here. IMDB page here.
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Quote of the Week #041
“The diseased know things the well have overlooked.” – Robert in the Jungle Garden.
