Category Archives: Music

Random Songs and Thoughts and Such

August 24, 2009

Right now my music library is made up of 4,983 songs composed by 450 artists, spread over 628 different albums.  This is equivalent to 15 days of non-stop tunes.  Woo!  I’m sure that these numbers are dwarfed by many of the music libraries out there, but this is still a substantial amount of music.  Because I’ve no idea what to talk about today and it’s getting late, I’ve decided to simply let my library play on shuffle for an hour and then record the songs that play and whatever thoughts occur to me while I give ‘em a listen.  I will faithfully record all the songs that I encounter and promise not to skip about to make myself look good – hopefully nothing too embarrassing plays.  Also, I’m not sure how sophisticated the “shuffle” feature is with Rhythmbox (I’m currently using Ubuntu as my OS because I don’t want to pay for Windows), but hopefully this provides a good mix of kind of stuff I like to listen to.

1, 2, 3… go!

1. 3rd Planet by Modest Mouse on The Moon and Antarctica

Yes!  This is a great way to start off.  Modest Mouse is definitely one of my top ten favorite bands and this is definitely their best album.  It’s also one of the first CDs that I ever bought.  I listened to it almost constantly during the summer between 8th and 9th grade and it’s continued to be one of my favorites.  Gravity Rides Everything is my favorite song off of this album, but this one is quite good, too.

2. Wrecking Ball by Mother Mother on O My Heart

This song is a fairly new addition to my library; I added it just over a month ago.  I was browsing upcoming shows around Seattle online and saw that this band was playing at the High Dive at the beginning of August.  I visited their Myspace page and liked quite a few of their songs.  This was one of them.  Although I didn’t end up getting to see them live, I did download their album and have enjoyed multiple listenings.

3. Skeleton Key by Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s on The Dust of Retreat

Again, I saw that an interesting looking band that I’d heard about was playing locally and again I downloaded some songs to give ‘em a listen and again I didn’t actually attend the show.   Damn.  I wish that I had.  I wouldn’t say that this song is one of their best, but it is quite enjoyable.  The up-tempo beat, mildly haunting vocals, and depressing lyrics combine to form a song that is catchy, yet melancholy, which is a bit unusual.

4. Welcome, Ghosts by Explosions in the Sky on All of A Sudden I Miss Everyone

Win.  I love this band.  I tend to enjoy the “post-rock” genre in it’s entirety, but this band is probably my favorite of the bunch.  I’ll admit that some other bands, most notably Sigur Rós, have moments where the sheer power and emotion of their music are more awesome, but I still like EitS best.  This selection is a bit arbitrary because I can’t quite explain why I’m so fond of their music, but it has the ability to evoke a wide variety of positive feelings inside of me whenver I listen to it.  I’d say that the above track is fairly pedestrian… if I had my choice of songs by these guys, I’d go with Your Hand in Mine… definitely my favorite.

5. Northwestern Girls by Say Hi on The Wishes and the Glitch

Here’s a song that I’d forgotten about.  Last year I went on a big Seattle-band download binge and grabbed as many songs as I could by up and coming bands in the Seattle area.  The idea was to find lots of great local bands and then get to go see them live, for cheap, before they got big and famous.  This strategy fizzled in the preliminary phases when I decided there were too many bands and too much music to complete an adequate investigation (upon further review, I think that I’ll revisit this plan in the future).  However, I did get a slew of new music, some of which is quite listenable.  This is a solid song and makes me want to go and listen to more by Say Hi when I’ve finished with this  entry.

6.  Throw Away Your Television by Red Hot Chili Peppers on By The Way

This song reminds me of the summertime.  Maybe it’s the hoppin’ beat or the zippy lyrics or maybe it’s the fact that I listened to this album for an entire road trip/vacation to the Outer Banks during the summer of ‘03.  Either way, it’s a groovy song.

I’ve been so positive about the songs I’ve encountered so far, it’s a bit crazy.  There really are quite a few songs in my library that I don’t like.  I’ve been very lucky so far, I guess.  Hopefully this trend continues.  I’m also getting pretty snoozy, so I would anticipate a decline in comments for the remainder of the songs.

7.  Poster of a Girl by Metric on Live It Out

It is a fair assessment to say that I generally favor male vocalists over their female counterparts.  However, this trend is severely overruled when it comes to Metric.  Emily Haines is such an excellent performer and I think she’s super-awesome.  Woo.  Although this is my least favorite album by Metric, it’s definitely no clunker.

8. People, the Vehicles by Maritime on We, the Vehicles

Another quality song.  I feel like there are no real weak points on this album.  Definitely worth repeated listens.

9. Change for You by The Midway State on Holes

Yes.  If the sole reason that a particular artist is a part of your library is their inclusion in an episode of The O.C., you know that’s a good sign.  But that’s okay.  It’s fine.  I love Adam Brody and think that The O.C. is a wonderfully entertaining show.  But really, The O.C. featured quite a few darn good bands (Modest Mouse, The Killers) and I’d say that The Midway State, while not the same caliber as the aforementioned bands, is a legitimately decent group.  The vocals are rich and the piano (A+) is highlighted in many of their songs.

10. ‘Til Kingdom Come by Coldplay on X & Y

Everybody likes Coldplay, right?  Their record sales seem to be very supportive of this statement.  The simple elegance of this “hidden” track is what makes it so beautiful, but maybe I’m just a sucker for songs with acoustic guitar.   I’ve included this one on multiple versions of my sleepy-time mixes.

Alright, I said an hour, but this post is getting really long and I think ten songs is plenty.  Besides, it seems rather fitting to end with this one.  I would say that the above ten songs present a fairly representative sample of the kind of music that I listen to.  Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this post.

See y’all soon.

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Musical Histories

August 17, 2009

Lots of folks find it helpful to have some kind of ambient noise present when they’re attempting to fall asleep.  Some employ a small fan to generate this noise, while others prefer the dulcet tones of karaokeing whales.  I prefer to listen to music.  Back in high school, before I had an iPod with external speakers or a computer in my room, I had to rely on CD’s and my trusty ol’ boom box if I wanted music playing as I fell asleep.

Instead of simply listening to one of the albums that I owned, I would usually make a playlist on iTunes and burn it to a CD.  This imposed a time limit of 80 minutes onto each of my mixes, which led to some arduous “this or that” scenarios.  The only other restriction was that I could only pick one song per musical artist.  My selection method was mostly dictated by my mood and by which songs I happened to like best at the moment, but it was also affected in large part by the season; summer obviously calls for summery music, right?  I could generally listen to the same CD for somewhere between a week and a month without getting terribly sick of it, depending on the awesomeness of the songs that I had selected. I played the CD’s on “shuffle” mode to impart a bit of variety. When I got tired of a CD, it got coastered or stuck in the back of my massive CD wallet, and I’d go and make a new one.

I kept the old playlists on my computer titled as whatever their date of creation was, enabling me to go back and monitor how my musical tastes slowly changed over time.  Some songs/artists appeared fleetingly (a lot of these are at least mildly embarrassing), while others were repeated again and again (old favorites like Modest Mouse and R.E.M.).  However, when I went off to college, my computer was always within three feet of my bed, so I no longer needed to make CD’s.  My habit of making the aforementioned playlists also disappeared.  In retrospect, I regret this cessation.  Music is forceful, easily altering and heightening experiences and emotions.  Having a recorded timeline to chronicle musical preference seems like such a good idea.  Such a good idea!  It’s like a journal, but using audible acoustic waves in the place of graphemes to record those important thoughts and feelings.  Everyone should do this!

I will lead by example.  Compiled below are 19 songs (1 hour, 19 minutes, and 49 seconds worth of music) that I really enjoy right now.  They represent my current favorite songs by the artists that I’ve spent the most time listening to over the past few months.

Song Name Artist Album
Effigy Andrew Bird Noble Beast
Paint or Pollen Blind Pilot 3 Rounds and a Sound
Furr Blitzen Trapper Furr
Love Is All I Am Dawes North Hills
Diamond Rings 2007 Deer Tick War Elephant
Been A Drill Heligoats The End of All-Purpose
A Children’s Crusade on Acid Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s Animal!
Wet and Rusting Menomena Friend and Foe
Things Fall Apart Mercir Winchimes and Landmines
Waves (B-side) Metric Fantasies
Ghosting Mother Mother O My Heart
For Real Okkervil River Black Sheep Boy
Friend of Feeling Good Olin and the Moon The Secret EP
Suspended in Gaffa Ra Ra Riot The Rhumb Line
For The Widowers In Paradise… Sufjan Stevens Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State
Deer Crossing The Picture Bluebirds
About to Walk Throw Me the Statue Moonbeams
The Lime Tree Trevor Hall The Rascals Have Returned
Colorshow The Avett Brothers Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsville Sessions

There’s a good chance that a few of these songs will always remind me of this summer. Woo. Hopefully there’s at least one song on the above list that you like, too. This was fun. I’ll try and do it every few months or so to stay current. Good luck recording your own musical histories (assuming you want to be awesome like me).

See y’all soon.

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Music #1 (Dawes) and Birthday Fun

August 10, 2009

Here I am, as promised, ready to do some serious bloggin’. Due to my ardent stance on alliteration usage (pro!), I’ve decided that Mondays should be for “Music” and Fridays should be for “Photographs”. This pairs poor, alliterationless “Books” with Wednesdays.

Here we go!

Music.

I enjoy music. Quite a lot. I’ve got lots o’ gigabytes of it and a serviceable iPod touch enabling me to carry on my love affair with tunes wherever I go. However, I understand that an mp3 player paired with musical appreciation in no way makes me unique or special or fancy. It neither qualifies me as a musical expert with impeccable taste, nor does it imply that I’m an uber-with it hipster, who likes bands before you’ve ever heard of them. The point of these “Music” bits is to simply share a song/artist/album that I think is really super-awesome and that I think you will hopefully enjoy. No one likes a music snob. Blech! They’re the worst. I will attempt to avoid any and all forms of snobbery in my blog posts. Promise.

Anyway.

Music!

This week, I will talk about a band.  That band is Dawes.  If you’re lucky, clicking this link will result in vast amounts of good feelings and maybe even a modicum of absolute giddiness – I experienced both!  Dawes has put out one studio album to date: North Hills.  As of right now, its Amazon.com Sales Rank is #51,473 for MP3 Albums, so you know it has to be good.  All of the songs on the album rate at least “Pretty gosh darn good!”, but my favorites are When My Time Comes, Give Me Time, and Love is All I Am.  Give ‘er a listen if you’re up for it.

While North Hills is quite good, this band is orders (at least three!) of magnitude better live.  I have been fortunate enough to see them perform twice.  The first time, back in May, they opened for Low vs Diamond and Ben Lee at Nectar in Fremont.  I’d definitely never heard of them before (they weren’t  listed on the tickets or Nectar’s website beforehand) but they were ridiculous.  Hearing really good music with no prior recommendations/expectations is a real treat.  They were so good that most of the obnoxious, “I’m going to insist on talking during the opening act” folks actually shut up and listened.  The lead singer/guitarist was quite the showman, animatedly dancing and hopping around on stage (in a good way) and the entire band’s performance was 100% entertaining and full of energy.  They played for about 45 minutes and I ran up and bought a copy of their CD as soon as they were finished.  <3

They came back to Seattle again in July, touring with Deer Tick, so OBVIOUSLY I went and saw them again.  Having listened to their album a bunch, they were even better the second time.  Very satisfying.  In the future, I plan on attending their shows whenever they’re in the Seattle area.  Anyway, they’re my favorite new band that I’ve given a listen to so far this year, so I figured it’d be prudent to give ‘em the old shout out and share them with whomever might stumble across this entry.  Hopefully you don’t think they suck!

In other news, today (assuming I publish this when it’s still August 10th)  is my birthday!  Hooray!  23!  Woooooo!  I celebrated mostly yesterday because I had to work today, thereby doubling the time over which birthday festivities occured.  It was great fun.  The highlights were eating at Ixtapa, my favorite restaurant ever (sorry Feve, you’re a very close second), and opening up one of my presents, only to discover that the red panda decorated wrapping paper was concealing a Canon Rebel XS 10.1MP Digital SLR Camera.  Win!  And it was totally a surprise, which made it that much better.  Now when I take and post photos, the only thing to blame their mediocrity on are my underwhelming photography “skills”.  So that’s fun.  My parents/family also sent me lots of nice presents and my housemates whipped up a delicious cake.  So, yes.  A good birthday.

See y’all soon.

Concerts attended in 2009: 9
Most recent: Throw Me the Statue & Blitzen Trapper @ the Mural Amphitheatre, 7/31/09
Next up: The Avett Brothers @ the Paramount Theatre, 8/28/2009

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