Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from May, 2013

Heavy Rotation #21

It's been about a month since I put up the last one but this covers the period from then up until the last week or so, when some new albums have started to take over... Mikal Cronin/MCII - This album starts out with some tinkling piano then some acoustic guitar then a sharp lyric wedded to a melody that will stick with you before finally bringing on the guitar fuzz. How great is that? Even greater is that the rest of the songs employ those tools (plus some saxophone here, some strings there, and a couple Ty Segall guitar solos on top) to create an album that you don't want to miss. I just can't get enough. Ivan & Alyosha/All The Times We Had - I used to think that this band did dance pop music ala MGMT. I was incorrect in my assumption. Instead, they are purveyors of pure pop music, descending from The Beatles as all such bands do. So, we get hummable melodies and harmonies and ballads and rock songs and lyrics that rise above the banal. And, like good albums ...

Sunday Shuffle #328

I'm working on a couple other posts, which I will hopefully have up in the next couple days. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the fact that this is the middle of a 3-day weekend. Hope you're having a good weekend too... 1. Better To Be/Liam Finn (15) - last played on 5/18/13 2. Tokyo/Telekinesis (17) - last played on 4/1/13 3. My Revenge/Julie Ocean (8) - last played on 3/24/13 4. Animated Airplanes Over Germany/Superchunk (7) - last played on 3/28/12 5. The Only Piece That You Get/Superchunk (14) - last played on 3/28/12 6. From Ghost Town/Robert Forster (5) - last played on 5/12/13 7. Better Times Are Coming Our Way/Cracker (5) - last played on 11/20/11 8. My Body Is a Cage/Arcade Fire (7) - last played on 3/5/13 9. Market Girl/Headlights (6) - last played on 1/20/13 10. Atmosphere/Velvet Crush (10) - last played on 12/2/12

Sunday Shuffle #327

I realize I'm doing these mostly for me at this point but I'm okay with that... 1. Big Difference/Tokyo Police Club (14) - last played on 11/11/12 2. Don't You Evah/Spoon (7) - last played on 4/4/13 3. Parklife/Blur (5) - last played on 5/12/13 4. Pablo And Andrea/Yo La Tengo (10) - last played on 9/30/12 5. Watch Out For Me Ronnie/Yo La Tengo (7) - last played on 1/2/13 6. Anchorage/Surfer Blood (5) - last played on 12/21/10 7. Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of/U2 (6) - last played on 5/5/13 8. Jamy/Higgins (12) - last played on 10/24/12 9. Staples/Buffalo Tom (17) - last played on 8/10/12 10. Slapped Actress/The Hold Steady (7) - last played on 10/14/12

Sunday Shuffle #326

I'd had thoughts of taking a break, what with 325 being a decent number to stop on, but I feel like doing one this morning, so here we go... 1. Yeah It's Beautiful Here Too/Superchunk (9) - last played on 2/24/13 2. The Mystery Zone/Spoon (12) - last played on 4/16/12 3. A Rose for Emily/The Zombies (13) - last played on 4/14/13 4. Guide Down Denied/Grandaddy (7) - last played on 3/31/13 5. Come Undone/Isobell Campbell & Mark Lanegan (10) - last played on 12/5/12 6. The Crooked Spine/M. Ward (4) - last played on 1/1/12 7. Your Apocalypse/Crooked Fingers (9) - last played on 1/19/13 8. With Nothing To Show For It/Clem Snide (15) - last played on 3/21/12 9. The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid/The Decemberists (4) - last played on 2/20/12 10. She Was No Good/Elvis Costello (5) - last played on 2/21/13

Sunday Shuffle #325

The lawn-mowing merry-go-round has started back up but the older I've gotten, the less I mind doing that particular chore. The nice weather also means that we have our porch set up again and I got to spend some time reading on the futon, which is one of my favorite things to do. Only five weeks left of school and only two of those weeks have a full five days, of which this upcoming week is one. Summer is coming... 1. He's A Reptile/The Soft Boys (5) - last played on 3/3/13 2. Out The Door/Ben Kweller (21) - last played on 3/22/13 3. Seeing Other People/Belle & Sebastian (6) - last played on 3/15/13 4. Larry/Buffalo Tom (15) - last played on 4/14/13 5. She Walks/Eli "Paperboy" Reed And The True Loves (6) - last played on 12/26/10 6. Concerning the End of the World (Eterna Redux)/The Prayers & Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers (2) - last played on 6/13/11 7. Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Of/U2 (5) - last played on 1/27/13 8. In My Bed/The Orwells (11)...

Monthly Mix #1: Good Love Is Hard To Find

Like all serious music fans, I love making mixes. I started with tapes, of course, and then moved on to CDs. These days, you can use Spotify to work the same kind of magic and I'm recommitting to the art of the mix. I plan on putting one together a month. For April, I assembled songs that I loved listening to (that will probably be my default mode but we'll see). I published this out on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr and few days ago but I've since renamed it and will now annotate it. I hope you give it a listen... 1. Wakin on a Pretty Day/Kurt Vile - This is the sorta title track to Vile's new album and it is so easy to get lost in the shifting guitars and sections of this nine-and-a-half minute tune. The thing is, it doesn't feel like it's that long. This is an album I've listened to a few times and I like it lot, so much that I think I might buy it in mp3 form. It's always great to find a new artist to like. 2. Wolves/Josh Ritter - My plan was to...