the last poets.

In spite of my best efforts to stay focused while I read this book about hip-hop, I can't help myself. Totally waylaid by The Last Poets.

Up through the years we've continued this fight
our liberty to attain
And though we have faced insurmountable odds
yet the will to resist remains

What is freedom? related to what?

rediscovering the strokes.

Every once and a while I come across things that I missed out on because I was Mormon. I say "because I was Mormon" but I really mean "because I had what I felt was a really good excuse to be uptight and obnoxious."  


Anyways, my high school boyfriend liked The Strokes. We spent a lot of time driving around in his Mom's black Pontiac Grand Prix listening to The Strokes really loud. It bugged the shit out of me. The distortion, at such a high volume, provoked comments like "I can't feel The Spirit with this music so loud."  I was very good at feeling The Spirit while making out or watching rated R movies, but god, that rock and roll!


I know. Seriously.  More than Mormonism, it was an early response to what would become a presumably lifelong problem of dating guys who lord their superior musical taste over me in this form of really annoying auditory patriarchy that makes me want to do irresponsible things like listen to Celine Dion.


So last night I was listening to The Strokes' new single with a friend (like that past boyfriend, another musically inclined, blonde haired, blue eyed guy- types, much?) and it hit me that in my Mormonness, in my resistance to my boyfriend's taste, I had missed out on something. And yep, it turns out that The Strokes are pretty good. Especially in relation to so much of the indie stuff that's out today-- they've got body, they've sincere, they've got buoyancy, and in light of a lot of the crap we were listening to at the turn of the century, they've proven pretty durable. 


This time around, I am the one turning the music up.

admiral fell promises.

Ok, I promise, this is the last of the Sun Kil Moon fangirl posts.  You can expect no objectivity from me-- I think you should buy this album.  I think you should play it all the time-- in your car, as you lay on your couch, as you put your children to sleep.  While you weed, on your towel at the beach, with a cocktail on the plane, while you smoke cigarettes on your porch.  You should shut your eyes when you listen to it.


So how do I really feel?


I've been listening to Admiral Fell Promises all weekend. We moved into our new place in South Philly on Friday afternoon and woke up to pounding rain, a dripping ceiling, and flooded patio space on Saturday morning.  Not that I really noticed the chaos-- with this album on I felt completely tranquil, drifting, dreamy, placid.  


This album is not like other Mark Kozelek albums.  I had a hard time getting used to April (Kozelek's previous album)-- I would listen to "Lost Verses" (my favorite song oƒ all time) but couldn't get into the dark sadness of many of the songs until winter hit. Admiral Fell Promises is more neutral.  I wouldn't go as far as saying it's more lyrically hopeful, but the music is brighter, more summer-y.  This has a lot to do with the minimalism of the production-- the entire album is just Kozelek and a guitar.  His strumming is lighter than on previous albums.  After listening to all of that clunky Red House Painters stuff, this album is absolutely elegant.  There is nothing rock and roll about Admiral Fell Promises-- the tone on much of the album is minstrel-like as the long songs sometimes fade into each other, almost indistinguishable from each other.  If you're looking for something quiet, something relaxing, something low-key but still stimulatingly complex, this album will fit the bill.  


You can stream the whole album here.


Probably my favorite tracks from the album:

Admiral Fell Promises by sun kil moon

Third and Seneca by sun kil moon

From the more articulate peanut gallery:
"Regardless of how it's credited, Admiral Fell Promises treats music as a retreat, allowing Kozelek to stand apart form the world and nurse his own disappointments. That safe haven, even more than his descriptive songwriting or eloquently downcast vocals, is crucial to his appeal, allowing the listener to slip into his perspectives, to see these vistas through his eyes, and to feel the ache of his regrets. For an artist who's notoriously difficult to pin down, that sense of refuge is remarkable, as is the fact that two decades into his career, Kozelek is still finding new inspirations."
-Pitchfork

"...Not only do his lyrics sound like the words of a man pondering his darker moments, but his solitary guitar further underscores that loneliness. That guitar work, though, is where Kozelek truly shines; his subtle plucking ripples beneath the vocals, flirting with his melodies as they create trancelike seances that stretch for the length of his compositions.

Even as Koz himself sounds bleak, his guitar work carries an entrancing energy. "Third and Seneca" finds Kozelek reminiscing about his travels — Oregon, Seattle, Denver and so on — his voice capturing hazy snippets of his journey. He conveys a roadweariness and homesickness that's universally felt and understood. At the same time, his lilting guitar melodies don't sound nearly so desperate; their cascading repetition evokes the feeling of daydreaming while looking out the window at passing landscapes. It's an unusual — and unspoken — juxtaposition, as he blends the buoyancy of his instrumentation with the isolation of his lyrics."

-The Washington Post

san geronimo.

My new Sun Kil Moon album has shipped! I'm am still so excited!  I am especially thrilled that the album comes with an additional 4 song LP (indeed, the deal was why I bought the actual CD, something I haven't done in years). Mark Kozelek is very good to his fans.  While Sun Kil Moon puts out studio albums as the mood dictates, Kozelek puts out live albums pretty regularly.


My favorite of these is 7 Songs Belfast.  Its offerings are a good representation of what I have in my embarrassingly large library of the man's music- a lot of covers and rearranged versions of songs from Sun Kil Moon and Red House Painters' studio albums.  The song "Michigan" is heartbreakingly beautiful-- lyrically, it may be one of his best songs.  


I love that you can listen to songs you know from earlier albums- like "San Geronimo" fron RHP's Ocean Beach- and get something completely different.  Then you can go back and forth over which one you like better.  Geeky, I know.


I can't find anything from 7 Songs Belfast up on youtube (is it enough just to talk about how good it is?), so indulge me with this cut from Ocean Beach that I can't stop diggin' on:

i smell another mark kozelek week coming on.

Oh man. Sun Kil Moon's new album should be shipping any day now and I am just dying.  Excuse this moment of fangirl excess.  To hold me over, I downloaded Ocean Beaches, Mark Kozelek's first solo album.  He wrote it when he was with the Red House Painters, at the beach.  Some of the songs are perfect and appropriately beachy.  Others are rougher and less charming but nonetheless channel the wrought sincerity of a lovelorn man in his early twenties, a genre of human being that makes me kind of sentimental.  Here's some of the beachy ones.

bright spots stockpile, part 1.

I like the chorus to this song. Hearing this song yesterday was an unexpected bright spot in a much too wild string of weeks.  Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm going to stockpile bright spots and share them with you all this week...

disclaimer: for once, church of the granny bike is going to be a little churchy.

True fact: whenever I get homesick, I listen to grunge music.  I get homesick when it rains because I think, hey, if I really wanted to live somewhere where it rained so much, I could just go home.  It's been raining a lot lately.  So I rediscovered Nirvana's Unplugged album. 


Did you catch that logic? Are you with me?  


Anyways, this time around The Vaseline's cover "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam"  caught my ear.  My latent inner Mormon has some theories as to why.  Thinking of Stella's post over at The Exponent,  and maybe even actually thinking about Jesus for a second,  the song is a good answer to the question of "How can we view and follow Jesus in a way that will actually bring about the Kingdom of Heaven on earth?"  Maybe Jesus wants us to be more than Sunbeams- maybe he knows what we are made of and that's enough.  He is our advocate, after all.


What this song also invokes for me a time I confessed to a guy I was dating that I didn't have very many hobbies.*  He suggested that I learn how to play the accordion.  This song makes me want to learn how to play the accordion. At home. In the rain. 

*I know, WTF. This blog is evidence that I have tons of hobbies. But whatever.

music monday: the temper trap.

Since seeing (500) Days of Summer (which I thought was fantastic and don't you try to tell me anything different) and buying the amazing soundtrack, I've come to enjoy the band The Temper Trap.  BBC called their album "blooming enjoyable pop music" and Pitchfork conceded that it's "radio-friendly sound... for the Coldplay set."  Whatever you call it, this music is exactly what I want to be listening to as warm sunny weather moves in.

the most amazing muppet video ever.

I almost titled this post, "In which Animal reminds me of my youngest niece." 

The folks at Muppet Studios are amazing- check out their YouTube channel to watch it in glorious HD and you can follow them on Twitter.

a magical neil young cover.

a little wednesday girl power rock for you.

I don't know why, but this song makes me feel like kicking ass and taking names.

I think it's this lyric:

She's an old-time ambassador
Of sweet talking, night walking games
And she's known in the darkest clubs
For pushing ahead of the dames
If she says she can do it
Then she can do it,
she don't make false claims
But she's a Queen,
and such are queens.

Maybe it's too much Gossip Girl, but I'm into the Queen Bitch motif today... Wait, what?

Which reminds me, Gossip Girl is very much into music that involves spelling.

this one's making me verklempt today.

can't go back now.

I've been working my way through Season One of Gossip Girl (don't hate!) and the music on the show is almost as good as the clothes. It got me listening to The Weepies today.

Pretty, chill music with lovely harmonies and oh so timely lyrics

that would sound good as a soundtrack to home movies or photo slideshows.

And they have a video with muppets!

You can listen to more of The Weepies here and to Deb Talan's solo work here.

another magical single from the new pearl jam album.

Listen to The Fixer, the first single from Backspacer

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a random sampling.

I don't usually do this kind of stuff, but I found it kind of entertaining. This is based on my iPod's holdings, which is closer to my master iTunes library on my desktop at home than my laptop here. Laptop iTunes was consulted in spots due to the limitations of the iPod.

Number of Songs: 2841 (I'm guessing 100 or so are unchecked on the home computer so they didn't make it onto the iPod)
Number of Albums: a mystery! do people really listen to albums anymore?
Most Recently Played Song: Pachebel Meets U2- John Schmidt (cheesy much?)
Most Played Song: Feel Flows- The Beach Boys

Most Recently Added Album: Tiny Cities - Sun Kil Moon and Ten - Pearl Jam

Most Recently Added Song: Ain't Nothin' But a G Thing- Dr. Dre

First Song Alphabetically: ABC- Jackson Five
Last Song Alphabetically: Zvezda Rok-n-Rolla (artist's name in Russian) from the Everything is Illuminated Soundtrack
Smallest Song Numerically: #1 Crush- Garbage
Biggest Song Numerically: 8675309- Tommy Tutone

Shortest Song: Pagoda's Theme- The Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack (I'm guessing my desktop would bring up something from Gone With the Wind's soundtrack) (:23)
Longest Song: A version of Dvorak's New World Symphony No. 9 mixed with nature sounds, by The Relaxation Company (24:33) (a Buzzard's $2 special)

First Full Album Alphabetically: Affirmation - Savage Garden (this is getting embarrassing)
Last Full Album Alphabetically: XO - Elliot Smith
First Full Album Numerically: 13 Going on 30 soundtrack
Last Full Album Numerically: 100% Funk

First Five Songs That Pop Up On Shuffle: Leaving on a Jet Plane- John Denver, These Days- Nico with The Velvet Underground, Hawai'i 78- Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Wonderwall- Oasis, Save Me From Myself- Christina Aguilera

the show.

I heard this song in a club in Cambridge a few weeks ago and it's been stuck in my head ever since. Now it can be stuck in yours too...

and we danced on the floor, in the round.

Ok, so it's been ten days since I posted and I am having some major blogger guilt. I've been major busy, having been out of town for five days. Wales was awesome and my (first!) conference presentation went really well. I was lucky to have the opportunity to cut my teeth at a small conference AND to get such a great response to my work. I haven't felt this good about my topic since I don't know when. The paper I presented was the start of the reworked argument that I had wanted to make before and I am finally feeling confident that it can and should be expanded into something "article length." Moral of the story: presenting is valuable! Doy.

Anywho, I'm sure the death of Michael Jackson is old hat by now, but man let me tell you it was weird to be in a London tube station at midnight hearing shocked people pass the news along to strangers. For all the weird details starting to come out about the man's latter days, I have enjoyed the outpouring of appreciation for his music. One of the few memories I have of being a wee ballerina is that if we were really good during our class, the teacher would put on a Michael Jackson record for us to dance to at the end. That I have continued to dance to MJ's music since then seems to point to his lasting pop legacy. I mean really, who can resist "Billie Jean" twenty five years on?

the ultimate fun song for a friday.

Bonus: Galleries here and here from Ascot, the opening day of British horse racing, featuring loads of fancy, over-the-top hats. Preppy men's fashion is making a comeback, as evidenced in a slideshow so beautiful I think I cried a little.

Also: Humorous missives on Labradoodle owners and Poseidon teaching a water-aerobics class.

tidbits.

-A worthy historical op-ed from The Paper on "Abortion Wars, the first time around."  

-Mikael at Cycle Chic responded to the annoying glut of specially designed casual cycle wear. Word.

-I am obsessed with 107.7 The End's 90s weekend (live streaming here).  I didn't know it was going on until I was getting into the car with Big Sister and my favorite band of 1997 came on- Super Deluxe with their beautiful song "Years Ago."  Sadly videos of theirs are scarce on the interwebs because they were a local phenomenon- but hey, something is better than nothing! Nothing quite like the music of one's youth.

even my baby niece was rocking out to this.

Haven't enjoyed a first listen this much in quite some time. Something about being back in this area makes me want to rock.