Just out of the woods and yelling down the mountains,
All I really wanted was to go downtown,
And so we ride.
- A.C. Newman

Look at that, muxtape is back. Well, at least a beta version. 12 artists have been invited to test it out. I’m curious to see what the main page will look like once the word gets out and the every band and their sister has a muxtape page.

See, muxtape was never big on allowing you to search, which was one of the better tools for getting around RIAA issues for a little while. This is ignoring the fact that combining muxtape and google was pretty much doing the same thing.

So what to do with the new muxtape? Well, I’d recommend checking on Dan Deacon’s Snake Mistakes. Why won’t these bees leave me alone, indeed.

Couple of news and notes here. I had picked up an EP by a DJ duo known as Circle Research this summer. 5 throwaway tracks from emusic that I ended up really liking. Well, now they have a full length and it’s only got about 72 tracks. I like the part about saving $62.29 if you buy the album as a whole instead of individual tracks.

Finally, I think I’m starting to understand A.C. Newman a little better. I’ve always considered him the driving force behind the power pop that is The New Pornographers, but based on Challengers and his new solo album, Get Guilty, I’m starting to think that the power pop is more of a compromise than his norm.

I say that because Get Guilty and Challengers have a very similar vibe, which makes a lot of sense. There was talk that A.C. had a large part in writing Challengers. Now if I could only get a recording of their cover of ELO’s Don’t Bring Me Down without having to go through iTunes… Check it out on youtube. Oops. Just impulse bought the album. Well, there goes my music allotment for the month.

Today’s song comes from Mr. Newman. Check out Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer.

La la la la la la,
La la la la la.
La la la la la la,
La la la la la.
- The Smurfs

Lala.com has apparently become more popular, now containing 6 million songs. When I had originally checked it out, it was still in its first phase of converting itself from a CD trading website to its current form. There wasn’t a lot of music and most of it you could only listen to 30-second clips. I came away unimpressed.

Since then, it appears to have become a fairly robust website with many cool features. Some of these include:

• One track listen for free. You are allowed one full listen of a track for free. Not a 30-second clip, but the actual full album.
• Buy web versions of song. This is a nice feature – for 10 cents a track (or less if you buy the entire album) you can purchase the right to listen to the song an unlimited amount of time on their website.
• Download MP3’s of songs. Once again, you’re going to have to pay for this – about 89 cents a track. Once again, less if you buy the entire album.
• Embed songs/albums in your webpage. This one I haven’t looked that closely into. I’m curious as to how it works and might have to try it out sometime.
• Purchase playlists. Like the list of songs that this person has compiled? You can buy them as a playlist. I had this idea a couple of months ago, but it looks like La La beat me to the punch.

On top of that, they’ve given me 50 free credits to start playing around with. While I’m the type of person who prefers to own actual copies of music as compared to web-only copies, the ability to check out a song in its entirety really appeals to me. I may have to start using the site more and more.

Speaking of websites, I’ll give a quick shout out to blip.fm, a new site where you become a “digital DJ” and twitter comments about songs you’re currently digging, not digging, or wish you could dig. Your comments get thrown on the front page and notices are sent out to DJ’s who have subscribed to your list. A system of “Props” are set up that you can send to other DJs. I have yet to play around with the site much, but thought I’d throw it out there.

I can’t tell you why, but I think I like Andrew Bird’s new album, Noble Beast, better than I liked Armchair Apocrypha. Either that, or I’m getting older and prefer my bands to be quiet, complex, and contain both violins and whistling. One of these days, I’ll test out that theory. You’ll know that day has come when I write a post about how Andrew Bird is the best artist in the world and should be properly exalted.

Honestly, I think it’s because of the song Not a Robot, But a Ghost. It’s delightfully strange and different, but still Andrew Bird. That being said, I’m playing the opening track instead. Check out Oh No.

I’m the new blue blood,
I’m the great white hope.
I’m the new blue blood…
I’m Mr. November.
- The National

Quite the day, wasn’t it? Both politically and musically. They were selling these t-shirts at Lollapalooza this summer. Amazingly enough, the Republican party didn’t have much of a presence there. Surprising.

I’m not much of a political commentator, so I’m going to stick to music. I had originally intended on writing something up for Tuesday, picking me up some Matt & Kim, and playing the snot out of it here. It’s now Tuesday night, and there’s no sight of their new album, Grand, on emusic.

So far, here’s what the status of Tuesday’s releases and whether or not I’m listening to them:

• A.C. Newman – Get Guilty. This album will supposedly be up in emusic by Wednesday.
• Andrew Bird – Noble Beast. Hanging out on emusic without me. I’ll probably pick this one up based on reputation, but it’s lower on my list.
• Bon Iver – Blood Bank. Bought and paid for. The first two tracks are “classic” Bon Iver while the last track is him playing with a vocoder. It’s pretty sweet.
• Cut Off Your Hands – You & I. I think I picked up COYH’s 2008 EP in December. I honestly don’t remember doing it, but I found it over the weekend and really enjoyed it. I’ll probably be picking this album up, too.
• Matt & Kim – Grand. Not on emusic. Looks like they changed labels, which might be good. When my brother ordered their original album from their website, he got a CD-R in the mail.

Except for Andrew Bird, all of these albums are streaming on Spinner. On top of that, the new Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavilion is also streaming. That’s pretty good.

Speaking of pretty good… five albums in a week is great. We’ll have to see if I have enough emusic tracks when all is said and done. Today’s song is theBon Iver vocoder song. Check out Woods.

Look at that, two posts in a day!

The A.V. Club is reporting that The Decemberists are offering a free download of one of the tracks off their upcoming album, The Hazards of Love, which happens to be on my short list of most anticipated albums of the year. Check it out if you’re interested.

Chips! Chips! Chips! Chips!
- Crystal Castles

Chips is close enough to blips, I think. I thought that I’d write up a list of random things I saw as important enough to think about, but not dedicate to a full post.

First, Franz Nicolay has released a solo album. You may recognize Franz as the Rocky Rococo impersonating keyboardist from The Hold Steady. It’s currently streaming on Spinner.

Speaking of Spinner, they’ve opened up the new year with an updated look. Even better news, their Full CD Listening Party now works with firefox 3! Now, if I could only get hotmail to stop telling me to upgrade my browser…

Pitchfork might as well give the new Animal Collective album top marks of the year already. That’s right, we’re jumping topics like mad today! They’ve given the new album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, a 9.6 out of 10. I can’t remember the last time that I’ve seen a non-reissue get a score that high.

Last but definitely not least, we have Microsoft’s new experiment called Songsmith. What’s Songsmith, you ask? It’s an intelligent program that adds accompaniment to any music that you sing. From watching the video, two things seem apparent:

1. Major chords with your voice making up the root note are prevalent.
2. The guy whose band wants him to write something other than a love song might want to first learn how to sing and then worry about his song writing skills.

If I owned a computer mic, there’s a decent chance that you would be being serenaded by a new version of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing, but unfortunately, I do not. You’ll just have to listen to what this guy came up with. Thanks for the link, Dana.

Today’s song comes from Franz Nicolay. Check out Cofessions of an Ineffective Casanova.

This here be a remix.
- Me

Sorry, I’m not going to be posting anything original today. I’m pretty sure that if you look back the past two years of NoEvilTwin, you’ll find every one of these words typed at least once. I’m just remixing them into a new post.

So why the picture of the fake martini? I’ll get to that.

I’ve found myself listening to a lot of electronic music lately. More specifically, I’ve been listening to IDM, otherwise known as Intelligent Dance Music.

Finding out that this genre existed and that I was listening to it made me feel more intelligent than I was previously aware of, and not knowing what intelligent people drink, I chose the martini.

So what about IDM? I think I’ll save that for my next post. This post is going to be about what makes a good remix.

It seems like everyone and their grandma has a remix album nowadays. I’m pretty sure that my grandma actually does have a remix album. Back in the day, the remix album was just six versions of your best single set to dance music. It was called a single and it sold for $6-$7. Man, CDs were really a rip off, weren’t they?

Now, you have albums containing remixes of every song off of the original album being sold. And they’re doing it wrong. Creating a successful remix can be difficult, but there are some simple rules you should follow to help you along.

1. Incorporate the original song you’re using into your remix. I can’t believe how many remixes I hear where the original inspiration is completely lost.
2. Don’t go simple. The easiest remix is to increase the bass, the pace, and the intensity. That’s the easy way out.
3. Make it your own. If you’re Fatboy Slim, this means follow your repeat the same phrase 10 times, then repeat a clip of that faster 30 times, breakdown, repeat. Did I just make a Fatboy Slim joke?

#3 is probably the most important. If you can have people arguing over which version is better, you’ve made yourself a nice remix.

Today, I’m going to be playing two songs. One is the original and the other is the remix. Check out:

Apparat – Arcadia

Apparat – Arcadia (Boysnoise version)

Radiohead is a whiny sounding band.
- Erin

What?!?
- Nick

Early January finds us still in review mode. Not much to talk about other than looking forward to upcoming albums. Bands typically release albums on a two year schedule. I like to check out my top 10 lists from previous years and see who’s coming out with new albums this year.

From my best of 2007 list, only Menomena and Peter Bjorn and John have any news on new albums with Menomena only hinting at a new album and Peter Bjorn and John being from Europe, it’s entirely possible that we won’t see any of them in the U.S. this year.

Pitchfork has made a nice list of albums coming out this winter/spring.  Personally, I’m a little disappointed with the selection on this list. On one hand it’s exciting to see a lot of music that I’m going to be able to check out. On the other hand, I really wanted to see some artists put out albums this year.

Here’s what I’m looking forward to in the coming months:

January 20th:

• A.C. Newman – Get Guilty
• Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
• Bon Iver – Blood Bank EP
• Matt And Kim – Grand

January 27th:

• Franz Ferdinand – Tonight: Franz Ferdinand
• Of Montreal – An Eluardian Insurance EP and Jon Brian Remix EP

February 3rd:

• Ben Kweller – Changing Horses

February 17th:

• Beirut/Realpeople - March of the Zapotec/Holland

March 3rd:

• The Boy Least Likely To – The Law of the Playground
• Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
• Say Hi – Oohs & Aahs

March 24th:

• The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love

While I’ve been in review mode, I’ve been trying to pick out decent albums from last year that I missed. In this search, I came across an album in my emusic saved for later pile (where albums go to die) by a band called The Primary Five. Check out So Much To Find.

So this is the new year,
And I have no resolutions,
For self-assigned penance,
For problems with easy solutions.
- Death Cab for Cutie

I like starting out the year with Death Cab lyrics. This is the time of the year where I usually go back through end of year lists to see what I missed. There’s always a few albums that slip through the cracks due to lack of knowledge or prejudice on my part. Typically, I find that I agree most with the A.V. Clubs lists,  get confused by Pitchfork lists, and am pretty indifferent to The Current’s top 89 list.

That all changed when driving home from a New Years Eve party. On New Years Eve, The Current plays a song from each of the 89 albums on the list in order, and then replays it the next day. So here I am driving along thinking, “Ok, I can understand why Atmosphere is #3. He’s local, and all of the local people are going to be bumped up.”

Coming in second was Bon Iver. Clear enough choice. Finally, your number one album of the year, as picked by listeners of The Current – MGMT. What?!? I mean, I understand that MGMT has a large following. My lollapalooza crowd picture was taken as I walked to the end of the park that they had just finished playing. It was probably the highest attended non-headliner of the weekend.

That being said, I don’t see it on any of the other lists. And me, being a little vindictive and wanting to explain how this could happen, came up with a solution that doesn’t involve the simple answer that a lot of people like MGMT. Well, that’s what it comes down to, but here comes my argument.

Voting for the top 89 of 2008 meant voting for up to 20 albums that you liked this past year in no order. MGMT is popular enough that they’re going to end up in the top 20 of a lot of voters. Maybe not at #1, but still. In my head, if people were forced to vote in order, things would have ended up differently.

We’re not going to go into the obvious fact that making people order lists is a horrible idea. Trust me, I understand how difficult it is to actually have to come up with an order to a list. This is just me being the cranky old man telling kids to stay off my lawn because I know better than them. A temper tantrum in blog form.

One album that I had previously ignored was Midnight Boom by The Kills. I saw The Kills at lollapalooza and I’m pretty sure that they scared me a little. I think that the song, Getting Down kind of threw me over the edge and I didn’t give a second thought to not picking up their album. Well, now I have and there are some good singles here. Check out Last Day of Magic.

Look at that, we made it through New Year’s Eve again without worldwide tragedy. I was convinced that Y2K9 was going to finally figure out its strategy and end us all. Speaking of which, does anyone have any use for a slightly used bomb shelter?

So, it’s the first Friday of the new year, but I’m not getting this post out until late. Maybe I’m just on vacation. While that may be true, that’s not the reason for no post until now.

In February, it will be two years since I started this thing. Faithfully posting three times a week for two years has taken a toll on me. When I started all of this, I decided that in order to successful, I needed to post early and often, somehow deciding that three times a week seemed arbitrarily enough times to put my thoughts to keyboard and through some sort of magic to your computer screen.

It has become clear to me that too often I start a post without any idea what I’m posting about, simply because I’ve promised a post today. I find myself posting songs that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend in public from albums that I haven’t really listened to. This year, I hope to change that. I want to make this about quality, not quantity.

I started this blog because I found that I had a lot of music that I wanted to share, and I had the time to share it. The most efficient way for me to do this was to put it here for friends, aquaintances, and strangers to view. The point is to advertise and celebrate music, especially the stuff that most people wouldn’t normally run across.

How often will I post? I’m not sure. I don’t see myself skipping an entire week without posting, but I’d like to make sure that I either have something interesting to write about or have a great song to post before I do anything. I know, it’s a wishy washy response, but I would hope that it can be seen that this is a better option than me just shutting the site down (unless you hate the site and you’d rather see it die anyway).

My hope in all of this is that I’ll be happier in writing posts about music that I want to write about.