New Order - Crystal

I love New Order. I could have chosen anything off of Substance (CEREMONY!), but I decided to go with something fresher. If you're a New Order fan or casual listener you may have missed this one.

Every time I listen to Crystal I feel like it's going to end at 3:10, but then it gets a second wind within seconds and goes for another full minute. Somehow that always impresses me. I will concede that the song is a little dancey. I also don't really get the video. The Youtube comment says that the killers got their name from the fake band in the video.



...I couldn't resist posting Ceremony. Here's a Radiohead cover of it. I'm feeling all fanboy now.

Al Jarreu "Mornin'"

This was inspired by Gould's two "Smooth 70's" videos.

I love this song, and have went to bed with this playing on my iPod more than once. The vocals and the lyrics are awesome. I really believe all the stupid shit that this guy is saying. He's singing to Cheerios at the beginning of it for God's sake. Everything about the lyrics is really positive and the music fits it perfectly.

The guitar part is extremely smooth that plays throughout the song. My favorite part of the song though is the build that happens where he starts screaming "sky" (if I'm not mistaken) at the 2:27 mark. There's no other place that was fitting enough for him to be at that moment of the song but in the majestic clouds.

Look at this fucking guy for Christ's sake. He's wearing a blue, white, and pink shirt with a sailboat on it (yacht rock) and I literally think he is insane.

I love this video and this song.

Black Angels - Black Grease

Well, i've never been bashed in the press before. I have to say, it was kind of exciting.

This is a peace offering to young Osman until i can return his book at the Future of the Left show in a couple weeks.

These guys are the black angels. I saw them open for Mute Math a few years ago, and they completely stole the show. All of the songs on the first album seem to be about the Vietnam War. I don't really understand how it could have that much relevance to a bunch of 20-somethings, but maybe they just want to be consistent with their 60s-style sound.

There are a ton of songs i want to put up, but i figured i owe Osman something first.

smooth 70s music

It's been a while since I posted so I figure I get two songs. Both of them are pure 70s. The first one is Rickie Lee Jones - Chuck E.'s in Love. The song is really catchy. I just always love hearing this song. I never get up the nerve to buy the cd for some reason like I'm afraid the rest of her songs could suck. Or maybe it would look too wussy next to my Joni Mitchell cds. One other note: the drum fill coming out of the quiet section of the song is mindblowing. Rewind it a couple time if need be.



For my second song I picked Fool Yourself by Little Feat which is just a laid back song that is great. The chorus is great, the vocal are amazing, this song is just sweet. This is the type of song that they'd play in a montage in a current movie that's set in the 70s. Plus that opening beat was sampled by A Tribe Called Quest.

Give me back my book

One weekend in the TENTH FUCKING GRADE you borrowed my Kids in the Hall tapes. Tapes, mind you, that I spent ages assembling like the obsessive dweeb that I was, making sure I recorded every episode I could from CBC and Comedy Central. For years, you claimed no knowledge of the event, and I bought your lies. I thought I must have dreamt the whole thing up. Maybe I really only had one tape all along.

Finally, in 2006, 8 years after the fact, you fessed up. You'd had the tapes all along, and you even told me that you'd just watched one earlier in the day. Because I was buying the DVDs as they came out, my anger had subsided, otherwise I would have murdered you on the spot. You also offered me a Bad Religion DVD as some kind of blood money which I gladly took.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

What in the hell was I thinking letting you borrow my precious copy of Our Band Could Be Your Life? This time around, you didn't even have the courtesy to lie to me and claim you never had it. Instead, every time I'd see you, you'd tell me how much you loved the book and how you'd never give it back.

Aaron Surma, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for yourself, if you seek liberalization, come here to the Majestic Theater on October 14th. Mr. Surma, bring my God forsaken copy of Our Band Could Be Your Life. Mr. Surma, give me back my book.

Gogol Bordello "Start Wearing Purple

This video is hilarious. I've only seen this once, (earlier with BJ) but I already wanted to get it up on here as soon as possible. I love how animated this guy is and the fact that they are literally screaming for people to start wearing purple. The amount of energy that you feel from watching this video alone is worth it.

These guys are from New York. The band is extremely multi cultural with the lead singer, Eugene Hutz, from Ukraine, and the rest of the band from Russia, Israel, Ethiopia and Ecuador.

Pop Levi - Dita Dimone

Hi everyone,

I just think that this song is awesome. That's it. I hope you like it.

The Gutter Twins - Misery/Flower

I wouldn't say i have a huge passion for this song, but i have a ton of thoughts on the song, and it fascinates me in a lot of ways.

The Gutter Twins (worst name ever?) is a collaboration between Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan from the Afghan Whigs and Screaming Trees, respectively. I'm amazed that two guys that were in bands that peaked in the early/mid 90s can make new music that doesn't sound dated at all. Plus, Lanegan was in Soulsavers last year, and that album is the shit.

It is rare to have someone maintain a career and stay relevant. Although they are obviously not huge, they are a legit band on a respected label, and the music is good.

As for the song itself - I really don't fully understand this song. It feels like the biggest build-up of all time, but there's never any cathartic release at the end. But, i kind of like that, in a No Country for Old Men kind of way (has that become the standard for feeling unsatisfied at the end of a movie, song, book?). Plus, I love Greg Dulli's voice so much. He looks so funny behind the mic in this video. It's really easy to picture how he looked as a sullen 13 year-old, with his chin jutting out like that. i'll bet he wore a lot of dirty tank tops.

Sorry for doing two songs back to back. I'm not going to make it a habit. But, i felt like i all of a sudden had a ton to say about this song. Plus, i wasn't able to post the last two nights, due to the problem with Flash 9 and firefox.

Death From Above 1979 - Black History Month

this blog is a nice place for dilettantes and music snobs.

This is my first foray into getting Osman interested in some newer bands. Although they released this album in 2004, it's still way newer than Robert Pollard's old ass.

I have liked these guys for the past 3 or 4 years, but i finally bought the album, and the hype has gone into overdrive. Every single song is catchy as hell, and i really like all of their lyrics (they introduced me to the greatest word of all time - dilettante).

I also really like the fact that they put out this one album, and then decided to start a new band. I really like it when a band can put out some great stuff and leave their legacy intact. Heroin has been great throughout the years for preserving a band's legacy. other than that, most seem to go the elvis route and embarrass themselves with reunion tours and gimmicky new 'sounds'. The downside is the new band, MSTRKRFT, is a steaming pile of horseshit.

Also, i believe their name is a Simpsons reference. The water balloons used in Bart's attack on Nelson said happy birthday. the gun store guy said, "well, i'd rather have them say death from above."

So, without further ado, here it is:

Also..

I was just thinking that if you don't want to put anything on here about music, or don't know anything about music , we shouldn't just limit this blog to music. We should also use this blog to post about books that we have read or want to read to get opinions on them.

Surma has been hyping the SHIT out of The Road by Cormac McCarthy and I'm just about finished reading it. I'm pretty worried about how Old Man Cormac (I'm guessing he's 3,000 years old) is going to end the book. I think this book is going to end leaving me with a ton of questions. It has kept my attention though having read the majority of it in one night. It starts off kind of slow and in my opinion there are some dull, almost too wordy phases in the book (Surma's going to be pissed), but the book picks up pretty soon and has been good ever since. The book is only around 300 pages and is written in font big enough for three year olds (which is why I could read it hyuck hyuck).

Aman

This isn't a Porn blog. You're going to have to just suck it up and use the internet for something other than porn. Start posting, Dickhead.

Having trouble watching videos..

Can anyone think of a reason why all of these videos on here are letting me watch the first two seconds of them, then they freeze? I was able to watch videos on here before, but now all of a sudden I am not able to watch videos I have already watched on here. Even waiting till the song has fully loaded won't allow me to watch it.

Droney Sludge Metal

From the ashes of Karp and the Murder City Devils, here's Big Business outta Seattle, WA. I'm feeling lazy so I'll spare the back story today. If you like Black Sabbath, Queens of the Stoneage, or are secretly a pissed off 14 year old dude like I am, there's no reason not to fall head over heels in love with this.

This songs called 'Hands Up' and it's off their second album Here Come the Waterworks.

Iron and Wine - Boy With a Coin

Those of you who know me and have spent any amount of time with me in the last couple of months saw this coming (and the Andrew Bird, for that matter). This is another example of a song that hits me really, really hard.

The acoustic guitar part is crisp, and moving, with a sweet accompanying bass line. The vocals are ethereal, dreamy, but hinting at sorrow or yearning. Then there are the hand drums and claps. I'm not sure if I would like this song nearly as much if it were played on a kit. Without any drums at all it wouldn't have nearly as much drive. The sustaining electric guitars and backwards violin (or whatever the heck that is) are a good compliment to the dreamy vocal harmonies.

If anybody likes this song enough to analyze the lyrics, I'm interested in other peoples interpretations.

Again, I hope you all like this at least a little bit

Andrew Bird - Imitosis

I recently discovered Andrew Bird. There are only a handful of bands, or songwriters that can coax me to buy an album after hearing only one song. But after hearing the song "Heretics", I was completely sold. The entire album, Armchair Apocrypha has been pretty well revolved in my car stereo since I bought it, and I don't plan on taking it out anytime soon. I know that different things hit different people, so I don't expect everyone to react to this like I did. This just gives you a good idea of what moves me, and therefore, a little peek into the window of my soul. I hope you all enjoy it at least a little.

Oh yeah, I looked up "Imitosis" and there was no definition, but I imagine it is the reversal or opposite of the process of Mitosis (ala "mature" vs. "immature").

mitosis– noun Cell Biology. the usual method of cell division, characterized typically by the resolving of the chromatin of the nucleus into a threadlike form, which condenses into chromosomes, each of which separates longitudinally into two parts, one part of each chromosome being retained in each of two new cells resulting from the original cell.

MMJ Anytime!

I listened to My Morning Jacket's live album Okonokos pretty much non stop from 2006-2007. I can't explain why either. I was getting into the slide guitar country/bluegrass sound and Emmons recommended My Morning Jacket to me. Overall Okonokos sounds really heavily edited, but I actually think most of the songs sound better than the actual studio versions.

Not to overhype it, but this song is pure catchy. Anytime is easy to sing along with, has keyboard, guitars, some oh-ohs/yeah-yeahs, and makes a Madonna reference, what else could you possibly ask for? Not a lot of deep meanings or metaphors here, but that's okay.



For those of you with shorter attention spans, here's the sock puppet version:

Proto-Weezer

I'd never heard of Big Dipper until this past June when Jim DeRogatis talked them up on Sound Opinions. I probably hate 99% of the music I hear. The 1% I do love, I pretty much fall in love with instantly. Needless to say, as soon as I heard Big Dipper's combination of big, surfy guitars and oddball lyrics, I rushed home and downloaded everything of theirs I could find on soulseek like the horrible bastard that I am.

Big Dipper formed in Boston during the mid-80s, put out a few albums, including one on a major label, and then broke up in 1990. I'd say the best way to describe their sound would be Weezer, but with balls, or as this really terrible music website which I hate but find myself checking from time to time puts it, "they sound kinda like early R.E.M., but nerdier and with more heft."

This year, Merge Records released a collection of the band's work titled Supercluster:The Big Dipper Anthology on which both the songs I'm posting ("Loch Ness" followed by "When Men Were Trains") appear.

Luckily, some dude in 1988 had the foresight to record an entire Big Dipper show with his crappy camcorder. They're pretty low quality, but about the only Big Dipper videos to be found on the innernett. Enjoy.

Piss on your dog (not Cinnamon or Rocco)

Wow, so much pressure to show how with it, underground, and cool I am. I'm sorry, but I'm absolutely terrible at describing things, especially music. The best I can come up with is to say that I'm generally a fan of straight ahead rock music, especially if it has herky, jerky guitars and a loud booming drum.

Here's a band from San Francisco called Crime. They were around in the 70s to early 80s and only had a handful of releases and were pretty obscure until Swami records released a disc with all their collected material in 2004 called San Francisco's Still Doomed. Some even claim, well some dude who wrote on Wikipedia, that their single Hot Wire My Heart/Baby You're So Repulsive was the first punk release by a band not from New York. Being a Michigander and a huge fan of the Stooges, I take exception to that but this sort of thing really wasn't seen much outside of New York in this day and age I guess.

Here's a video of them performing my absolute favorite song of theirs called 'Piss on Your Dog' at San Quentin prison. This was filmed during a period when the very anti-social band had taken to wearing nothing but police uniforms in public. The quality is terrible, but if anything, enjoy it for the shots of all the 1980s convicts holding up Crime posters

John Zorn- Batman

So for my first post I figured I have a lot of pressure to go about as nerdy and weird as possible so I went with John Zorn and Naked City. This was the first song of the first cd I got by him and it's amazing. It has great energy and is just a fun song even with all the saxophone screeching, and it keeps with the dark knight theme of the summer. Surma you better give this an honest chance. p.s the video is dumb.

This has nothing to do with music....

But, I don't know if you guys have played this game before:

Tontie


If you're just sitting around wasting time this is a pretty good way to do it.

The Gaslight Anthem "'59 Sound"

I couldn't find any videos for any of the songs I really like by these guys off their older LP Sink or Swim, so I put this video up. This is from their new album and is the title track. I really like these guys and especially the singer's voice. He does sound a little like the lead singer of Archers of Loaf sometimes, so that's a good thing.

I just listened to this song for the first time and I got so excited I decided to put it up here.

P.S. I found out about these guys through and he already has had this album for awhile, so he might have a song that he likes off of it even better, but for now I'm putting this song up.

Last Stop: This Town

The first time I saw this video, I was cracking up. The little carrot singing the deep, lispy voice gets me every time. This is not my favorite Eels song (see "Your Lucky Day In Hell"). But it is a damn good song, and a damn good video... in my humble opinion.

Rabbit

This video is one of my favorite. You suck if you hate it.

Radiohead fucking rules.

Fuck Off Guy

First things first you would be stupid not to be all over this blog as it is clearly essential to prolonged existence of musical opinion. Surma deserves respect for that last post. I can't believe that nothing in my life will probably be better then this stupid blog.

Anyhow below I offer the band Morphine in their short lived rise to knownness, they offer this the title track to one of my favorite albums of all time. This could be one of the most under rated songs ever for a man working though spout of self reflection. Also, I wish the lead singer was around long enough for me to see him live but unfortunately that was not the case.

My first Bonnaroo experience they played the entire "Cure for the Pain" album while the crowd waited for DMB to come on but please don't consider DMB as the headliner of that set. The playing of that CD was far superior to the concert that followed.

Tyrannical hands clap for rules

I'm gonna have a hard time vomiting all over this blog. Perhaps we should set a limit per week per person. We all would like enough time to check each video/song out and let it occupy our minds for a little while, and the more people who are on this, the more videos there will be.... Just a thought.

Working Day And Night

This is a song from the Off the Wall album. I believe it was his first solo album. It's hard to pick a favorite Michael Jackson song, but this may be one of my favorite of his lesser known stuff. Unfortunately, there is no actual video for the song, but this has tons of good footage from some of his other videos. Whoever did this did a hell of a job syncing things up. Check those moves.

Might as well start with the Beatles bullshit now

I don't know how many of you actually know this song, but this is probably more for Surma .

Sorry about the video that is basically just a stroke off fest for John Lennon...

Menomena - Evil Bee

ok. Since January, i have been completely obsessed with Menomena. They make the most intelligent and interesting music of anyone that I've listened to over the last few years. They are some art school nerds from Portland, and their videos are as sweet as their songs.

This song is the most epic-sounding song on the album. Who knows what they're actually talking about. For all i know, they just tossed together some words that sound good. But, i'd be interested to hear anyone's opinion on the lyrics.

So, enjoy:



ps #1: When you are on the youtube page that you want to embed (enbed? spelling?), on the right side of the page it shows the URL for the link, and the URL to embed the video. You OBVIOUSLY choose the URL to embed the video.

ps #2: I'm afraid that i'm going to blow my load in the first few weeks. I'm going to try to limit myself to only a couple posts a week.

ps #3: Let's try to be consistent with the labels for the posts. It would be cool to have helpful labels to sort through the posts. I suggest we include the type of music, and the person who posted the song. Let me know if you have more ideas.

The point of this blog

Friends,we have the ability to make this awesome. What we will do is post a song that we love, and say why we love it. It doesn't have to be new music, or even new to you in general. Just make sure you have a passion for it, and tell us why you have a passion for it. It can be funny, tuff (all of emmons' metal) or anything else. My only goal is to share music with my friends, and to learn about music from those same friends.

Right now, we need the 'internet space' to save MP3s and post them here. If anyone knows how to do this, super. Until then, we will have to settle for youtube clips of songs.

Bye Bye

-Aaron