GONE FISHIN’

While waiting for Friday’s post, check out some lollapalooza artists.

Today’s song comes from Dr. Dog, a jam band that gets confused for being an R&B group due to their name. Check out a live version of Die, Die, Die from the 89.3 studios.

All we do is talk, sit, switch screens,
As the homeland plans enemies.
All we do is talk, static split screens,
As the homeland plans enemies.
Invasion’s so succexxy
- Metric

Assuming that you read this sometime between Monday and Wednesday morning, I should be in Washington DC. My nation’s capitol. Ha, that’s funny. Like I have a readership from outside of the United States.

I read an article a while ago asking why their hasn’t been much outrage in the music community over the war, etc. I didn’t comment on it at the time because I’m writing a music blog. It’s the same reason that I generally try and keep personal information out of this blog, like what I did on Thursday night or my favorite blizzard flavor. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t come through, I just try to not be so straightforward about it. Politics falls under this category.

Of the top of my head, outside of a couple of songs (Metrics Succexy, The Get Up Kids Lion and the Lamb) and an the Prepare to be Wrong album by Straylight Run, there haven’t been that many protest songs that I’ve found. At least nothing that direct. If I weren’t on vacation, I’d probably go into this some more. Sorry guys and gals, I gotta see the sights.

Today’s song comes from Kenny White. Check out How Long.

Vacation, all I ever wanted.
Vacation, had to get away.
- The Go Go’s

Bet you didn’t see those lyrics coming, just like you didn’t see the dance remix of the 5 dollar foot long song, either! Check that out here. Unfortunately, there’s not a direct link to get the MP3, but just click on the #3 on the right and you should be good to go. I’d help you, but I suck at the internets.

So yeah, I’m heading out on vacation tomorrow. Going to DC and then up to New York. Unfortunately, at first glance, I didn’t see any bands that I want to see while in town, but perhaps I’ll convince Erin to step inside a club on one of our free nights. Don’t be too disappointed if I don’t find anything – I’m just a small-town boy hitting the big city.

Coachella starts today. Silly west coast people with their parties in the desert and high priced tickets. Looking at the schedule, I’d say if there were still single day passes (there aren’t), that Friday would probably be your best bet. Don’t believe me? Ask Battles.

It would be interesting to see Prince. For those of you who saw his Super Bowl performance, you saw that he didn’t lip-sync squat. He’s a true performer and he saved First Ave., so therefore, I have to be eternally grateful to the guy.

Today’s song comes from Cut Copy, off their new album to which Pitchfork states, “In fact, it’s closer in spirit to the Avalanches‘ Since I Left You than it is to anything from the past few years.” I love the Avalanches album, but unfortunately, “in spirit” does not mean “sounds like” in this context. Overall an enjoyable album, but nothing near as classic as Since I Left You.

Check out Unforgettable Season, a track that sounds incredibly familiar to me. Wanna know why? Speed up the intro to Dreamworld by Rilo Kiley, and you have the intro to Unforgettable Season.

Heal the world,
Make it a better place,
For you and for me,
And the entire human race.
-Michael Jackson

Ok, a day late, but I couldn’t write this one yesterday. My five readers would freak out. “You wrote a post a day early because of stupid mother earth?” No, I don’t picture my readers as psycho earth-haters. They just get angry and things get said that they probably shouldn’t say, but in the heat of the moment they tend to lose their collective cools.

You can’t go far in a review of anything by Cloud Cult without the phrase “environmentally conscious” being thrown around. There’s a reason for that – the band goes to incredible lengths to be, well, environmentally conscious.

• Their label, Earthology Records, is the only non-profit record company in existence, giving profits to environmental charities.
• They use recycled/reclaimed jewel cases for all of their CDs.
• They use recycled paper for their album art, with non-toxic soy inks.
• Cloud Cult tours in a biodiesel van.

That’s quite the list for a touring band. They are one of the four bands playing at Rock the Garden this summer, which should be interesting. During their shows, they apparently have two members of the band on stage painting. At the end of the show, the two paintings are auctioned off.

Today’s song comes from their recently released album, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes). Check out Everybody Here is a Cloud.

Trees break the sidewalk,
And the sidewalk skins my knees.
There’s glass in my thermos,
And blood on my jeans.
-Neko Case

Pitchfork is reporting that Neko Case, who has been touring with The New Pornographers despite a fractured ankle she suffered last week, has decided that it’s time to go home and rest up. Looks like my brother’s not going to be happy when they show up in Madison tonight. But hey, he gets to go to Coachella next weekend, so I’m not all that sympathetic.

Speaking of next weekend, I will be on vacation next week, but will try and keep my Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. I won’t have internet, and probably won’t care to validate that my posts have shown up correctly, but hey, I’ll see what I can do. More than likely, you might get one good post, one bad post, and one funny post, which you will need to judge as good or bad.

Sunday was easily the nicest day of the year so far, so I used the time to clean up my garage. After a long winter, the amount of sand and dirt that pile up in there is amazing. When I work outside, I like to bring out a set of speakers, set up my iPod, and switch between CDs very quickly. For whatever reason, I feel the need to try hard to not offend my neighbors with my music.

Granted, other than the people right next door to me, I don’t know most people’s names, but for some reason I don’t want to come off as the weirdo blaring Deerhoof while cleaning his garage. So what did I listen to? Pretty tame stuff. A little LK and some Say Hi To Your Mom, followed by the majority of Spoon’s Girls Can Tell and the new Colin Meloy live album.

I also listened to the new EP by Fleet Foxes, which is where today’s song is coming from. This 5-song EP (selling for $3 at amazon!) is pretty solid for a debut EP. The opening track starts with a three part a ca pella section that kind of gets off track when the lead singer sings a bit sharp at the start of the second verse.

After that, tracks two through five show what these guys can do, combining three-part harmony with classic indie pop. This EP makes me excited for their debut album, scheduled for June 3rd. I had a hard time deciding which track to choose, eventually settling on track two, Drops in the River.

Even though i haven’t seen you in years,
Yours is a funeral I’d fly to from anywhere.
-Why?

I expect it to be a rough day for me at work on Friday. Don’t you love it when the lyrics in your head match up with your expectations for the day? Oh well, I’m not going to bog you down with details, instead I’ll try and cheer you up with music!

A little too cheery for Friday? Maybe.

Last night, I attempted to figure out which albums on my iPod do not have their album covers associated with them and then I attempted to get those album covers. iTunes says that I have 549 albums, although I’m inclined to believe that it’s less than that, because when I changed to the album flip view, some albums had as many as 6 covers for the same album – same image, same album name, different album. Apparently I have some spring cleaning to do.

Lately, I’ve been trying to pick up one or two albums a month from artists who are going to be at lollapalooza this summer that I’ve never heard of. This month, I’ve picked up an album by Foals, who are a dancy, math-rocky band out of ye old Britain. My second pick for the month is a band called Ha Ha Tonka, which is apparently a Missouri state park and not what a four year old says while playing with a big metal truck created in Minnesota. Har dee har har.

Today’s song comes from Foals. Check out Electric Bloom.

I’m late, I’m late,
for a very important date.
No time to say hello. Good-bye!
I’m late! I’m late! I’m late!
- Alice in Wonderland

Sorry guys and gals, I’m getting to this a little late this morning.

Erin and I caught the movie Stranger Than Fiction this weekend during the Starz free weekend preview. For those of you not familiar, the main character starts hearing a voice in his head that is narrating his life and it turns out that an author is writing a book about him that ends in his untimely death.

At some point in the movie, the lead character figures out that the author is the voice in his head, and since he’s an IRS agent, goes and looks up her phone number at his office. During this entire scene, the background music is My Mathematical Mind by Spoon.

Sidebar – this was one of I think three songs by Spoon in the soundtrack. Interesting.

Anyway, as I was saying, err… typing. My Mathematical Mind is playing, but it is the section without any lyrics, especially not the ones that sing, “Myyyy mathematical mind can see the breaks.” So I’m sitting here amused because they’re playing a song called My Mathematical Mind in relation to the IRS agent, but it’s not quite giving it away. Erin wasn’t nearly as amused by this as I was, but I had forced us to switch over to the movie instead of watching a chefography on the guy from Ace of Cakes, so I think she was a little bitter.

Today’s song has nothing to do with the above story. It is instead a cool song by a band that is either called Heavy or The Heavy. It really depends on where you are reading about this band. I like to call them The Heavy and will keep up that precedent if that’s ok with everybody. Today’s song is called That Kind of Man. Enjoy!

And I know that mostly on these sort of shows. Any show really… the band on stage wants to exhibit their best effort. The best songs that they’ve written, so I think it’s fair that you should also do the worst songs you have written. And so, tonight, I am going to play you the worst song that I’ve ever written, and it’s bad to the core.
-Colin Meloy

Ok, so it’s not a quote, but it’s a funny exerpt from the new Colin Meloy live album, Colin Meloy Sings Live! More on this later.

This last weekend was a weekend of late nights out. The first involved a late-night airport pickup and Saturday was a night of fun. On the morning after a late night, I like to listen to The National so I can actually sing along to all of the songs.

For those of you unaware, lead singer Matt Berninger tends to spend the majority of his time in a vocal range lower than I can usually sing. But on those fateful mornings where it’s difficult for me to keep my eyes open, I am able to keep up with his vocal prowess.

Moby’s new single, Honey, is pretty much an Avalanches rip-off. Well, not exactly, but it sounded enough like the Avalanches, that I got excited that the long-awaited new Avalanches CD was being released. Not the case. Enough of your vegan games, Moby!

The polls have closed early for the first, pick Nick’s new album to pick up. For those of you late to the party, too bad. I got an itchy trigger finger and picked up the new Colin Meloy. Now, I’m upset that he’s not coming anywhere near Minneapolis. Sorry, Madison and Milwaukee don’t count – not on a weekday at least.

I’m not going to play the song from which the above quote comes from. You don’t want to hear about Dracula’s Daughter. It may show up sometime if I want to talk about song writing, which I absolutely suck at. Unless I’m changing the words to a diferent song to sing about the dog, or how much the cat sucks. Today’s song is called The Engine Driver, and was originally on The Decemberists’ album Picaresque. I really like the dissonance in the guitar chords and the line that starts with, “I am a writer, writer of fictions.”

Johnny you rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard.
‘Cos hells broke loose in Georgia and the devil deals it hard.
And if you win you get this shiny fiddle made of gold.
But if you lose, the devil gets your soul.
- Charlie Daniels

In reading Stereogum yesterday, I found a short post about an article in NME regarding Charlie Daniels and the fact that The Devil Went Down to Georgia is used in Guitar Hero III. Apparently Mr. Daniels would never have allowed a video game to use his song, but he apparently lost the rights to it back in the day. Instead of linking you directly to the article, I’m going to link you to Stereogum. That’s how this wacky blogosphere works, ya know!

I’ve always been somewhat wary about “Christian Rock.” Growing up, there was a Christian rock show every Sunday morning on the local radio station. After that came Rick Dee’s Top 40 show, which was what any grade schooler really wanted to listen to.

Perhaps the DJ of said Christian rock show was stuck in a specific sub-genre of Christian rock, or these were the songs that were popular, but it just seemed to me that everything was very predictable. Quiet verse followed by a loud, ballad-like chorus, which would be repeated at minimum three times to end the song. This method was obviously created because people love to sing at a Christian rock concert.

Either way, I had issues with this. It seemed to me that it might be a good idea to appeal to a broader audience. Then again, the stuff sells. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I recall that Christian rock makes up a large portion of general music sales in the United States.

Where am I going with this? I found a Christian rock band that I like. Today’s song is by Bodies of Water, an ensemble group that sings with more than just “Christian overtones.” Check out Our Friends Appear Like the Dawn.

I sleep on my back cause it’s good for the spine,
And coffin rehearsal.
I know a psychic who reads her own palms,
And the findings are personal
She keeps her fists shut tight and she sleeps on her side,
Well maybe she knows something I don’t know.
- Why?

Quick note, spinner has an unusually large number of good albums on it this week. For those of you doubting me, here’s the list: Cut Copy, Clinic, Peter Moren (he makes up the Peter part of Peter Bjorn and John), DeVotchKa, Gnarls Barkley, and Tapes N Tapes.

Per my usual, I’ve hit the “I’m running out of emusic tracks, what album should I download?” time of the month again. I have 15 tracks to go with the 19 albums in my saved for later list. I figured that I’d pick three albums and see if you, my reader (all one of you) would be willing to help me pick out which album to play.

Colin Meloy – Colin Meloy Sings Live! – Colin Meloy is the lead singer for The Decemberists. He recently toured, playing solo acoustic versions of Decemberists songs, as well as possibly some new songs. Because it is a live album, you get some audience banter and different versions of old songs. A hipster’s paradise!

Cloud Cult – Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes) – How can you not want an album combining this cover art with a name like they did? Seriously, though, they are the fourth band in this summer’s Rock the Garden, and I’d like to see what they’re like. Their samples have been positive so far.

Cut Copy – In Ghost Colours – Today’s list of bands is brought to you by the letter C, which is also for cookie. That’s good enough for me. If Colin Meloy’s CD was titled, Colin Meloy Sings to a Bunch of Ghosts! then we’d have three things in common. Cut Copy is an electropop band with a lot of 80’s influence. Something good for a Fun Song Friday.

So there you have it. Vote early and often. I’ll take your opinions into consideration. You have until the 16th of April before my tracks expire and get refreshed (hooray!). On to today’s song.

Added to the list of band names that could potentially prevent me from checking out the band is Why?, whose album, Alopecia, is actually very interesting, assuming that you can ignore some strange lyrical ventures. It took me a couple of tries to find a song that I could actually put on the web page that didn’t contain lyrics that made me squirm a bit. Check out Fatalist Palmistry.