A shot at skies and horses

This is not my favorite tune off of this album, but that one doesn't have a youtube video and this one is almost as good.

(Note to self for when computer is up to task: make video for "Fatalist Palmistry")

The appeal of Why? is difficult to explain. It's like the allegorical philosopher returning to the cave, telling tales of what it's like out there - enchanting and/or hideous tales, all tenuous, captivating and incomprehensible. Only the stories are about darkness instead of light.

Even beyond the difference between shoeing and shooting horses.

Why?
"A Sky For Shooting Horses Under"
Alopecia

Fresh -aire

A nice addictive synth line and a lot of colorful flash. I saw Hey Willpower back in the day, must have been '05 in San Francisco. Good show, cute backup dancers. I think they did the same little dance they do here.

Not very deep and bordering on self-parody, but don't it feel good while it lasts?

Hey Willpower
"Hundredaire"
P.D.A. EP

Meteorological disturbances

Yeah, it's flooding down in Texas. The house is on high ground but I'm afraid the zucchini in the garden is mostly washed out.

Anyway, the recent state of the sky reminded me of this classic, classic white-boy Texas blues cut. Even if this particular recording reminds us that the 80's saw some...interesting fashion statements.

Stevie Ray Vaughan
"Texas Flood"
Live at Montreux, 1985

Zoiks!

The Pipettes are nothing new by now, but I like this video. Being a longtime nerd myself, I hold a certain empathy towards the subject of the song. You can never go wrong with psychedelic, Scooby-inspired animation, especially beginning with a catchy tune like this one. All in a little over 2 minutes.

The minor drawbacks (jerky animation, repetitiveness) could have been solved with a bigger budget, but good fun nonetheless.

The Pipettes
"ABC"
We Are The Pipettes

Houston and problems

Bespectacled individuals of the world unite!

Another artist off of the Boy in Static podcast. A number of very nice tracks by this gentleman, but given the geography of the moment I couldn't resist posting this one.

Her Space Holiday
"A Match Made in Texas"

Adventure beckons!

There's a little bit of static in the beginning, but it's just a cover for the joyful, echo-drenched swirling sounds and colors that follow.

They may or may not be referencing Melies and/or Smashing Pumpkins, but it wakens within the bosom of your humble correspondent the desire to don waistcoat, pocketwatch, walking stick and monacle and spend an evening at the opera.

This is what the Stone Roses might've sounded like if they'd been, you know, happy.

The Ruby Suns
"There Are Birds"
Sea Lion

Bass & drum & beach

It turns out that a not-inconsiderable number of the videos I have been enjoying of late come courtesy of the UK-based Memphis Industries record label, said group including the video by Le Loup, this one, and a couple others I will be posting shortly.

Winner of the 2009 Best Use of Bass-and-Bass-Drum Award, the rest of the sounds in this seem to gather around the the warm, comforting boom, dancing around like Swedes in midsummer, drunk and festive and bouncing like frogs.

Add some very nice black-and-white, bleak (yet appealing) seaside travelscapes and the wanderlust comes back something fierce.

Papercuts
"Future Primitive"
You Can Have What You Want

Win some, lose some

You need to watch this twice, once to listen to it and one to actually watch it. Think of the video as Sliding Doors times four crammed into four minutes, and much better to boot. (Plus the guy looks eerily like John Oliver from The Daily Show.)

It sounds sweeping and ethereal, warm and distorted, cheerfully wistful, like a ghost remembering happy times. And it's been running through my head for the last couple of days.

Blue States
"Allies"

Heliocentric

There are a number of lovely things on the most recent edition of the XLR8R podcast by Boy In Static, entitled "East Bay to Back Bay."

One of them is a track from Mint Julep, better known as Helios. Which is most appropriate, as this track makes me want to sit on the porch, sipping an ice-cold mint-and-bourbon beverage and watching the sun and summer go by.

Helios
"Halving the Compass"

The band that cried "loup"

After Wolfmother, Wolf Eyes, Wolf Parade and We Are Wolves comes Le Loup, in the singular and in French. The first little bit sounds like a prime mashup component, all chorus and echo, but after the second time the music comes in I was feeling right inspired, like no Man could keep me down.

I'm sure it's even better live.

Le Loup
"Planes and Vultures"

Wide open spaces

I'm in Texas for the next little while, and I'm actually starting to get used to the whole country thing.

Thing is, there's also a fair bit of country music in Australia, what with the heritage of wide-open spaces, pioneers with horses and cattle and all them rough men living their rough lives under a big sky. They drink a surprising amount of bourbon in the outback. Go figure.

This song by Audrey Auld was on a Aussie country compilation I picked up in '02 and features the classic country combination of a great one-liner with short-and-bittersweet melancholy.

Audrey Auld
"I'd Leave Me Too"

Original cool

Antonio Carlos Jobim and Frank Sinatra singing the "exciting all new sound" of bossa nova together in 1967.

The very definition of original cool.

Antonio Carlos Jobim & Frank Sinatra
Medley - "Quiet Night of Quiet Stars"/"Change Partners (and Dance With Me)"/"I Concentrate on You"/"The Girl From Ipanema"

C'mon ride the train

I know almost nothing about Lonely Drifter Karen. Sounds like she might speak German or a Scandinavian language. (One wikipedia search later: she's from Austria).

I think I've been to this plaza, back when I lived in Barcelona for an academic year - it looks familiar but it was a while ago and I wasn't concentrating on the plazas.

Took a lot of trains then too.

A very cute melody from a very cute young lady.

Lonely Drifter Karen
"Passengers of the Night"

happy accidents

i have to say that i'm not even sure this is the phontaine i was looking for (i heard a phontaine song on a CBC podcast and did a quick search on youtube..), but anyhow, i stumbled upon this tune and i like it a lot. it has the slow, dreamy feel of zero 7. i like the atmosphere the song wraps you in. life slows down when i listen to this. the singer's voice is very powerful, but i like that she doesn't overwhelm us with it.

Grapes & wrath

One of the original punk bands from back in the day (they toured with The Clash & Buzzcocks in '77), The Slits have put down among the best version of this song. The rest of the album is a bit more...chaotic, but this track should appeal to just about anyone.

Check out Cut for a little piece of rock 'n' roll history.

The Slits
"I Heard It Through The Grapevine"

No subtitles

Dubbed kung-fu, if you will.

So the movie is apparently Fists of the Double K, a 1976 John Woo flick. The tune features two of the absolute masters of dub reggae, Lee "Scratch" Perry and the Mad Professor.

For those that enjoy strange and unusual things presented in a like manner.

Lee "Scratch" Perry & Mad Professor
"Mad Man Dubwise"

Wired

Wire became progressively less punk (progressing to progressive, if you will) as time went on. Good stuff all along their career, an influence to such People You Know as REM and The Cure. Insert Velvet Underground, influence-beyond-the-sales reference here.

This track seems to have been released as a single in '78 but was available as a bonus track on some reissues of Pink Flag. The lyrics seem to be about avoiding a car crash but are vague enough to allow other interpretations.

Not sure what any of this has to do with whatever Star Trek series this is, though.

Wire
"Dot Dash"

All your Battles are belong to us!

Battles are a rock band with an experimental tinge or an experimental band that rocks, depending on the track. This one falls in the former category.

Although it splits the difference between analog and digital, beats and melody, coherence and leftfield self-absorption, it's a solid rock song at heart with frills, decorations, and other things added for amusement and interest.

Whether the title is a reference to the Lone Ranger, Spanish-for-"idiot" or something else I'm not sure I can say, though.

Battles
"Tonto"
Mirrored

K&D #5

This is one of those "Hey, yeah, I've got that one, been a while since I've heard it, I should listen to it more often" tracks.

This remix is #5 on The Kruder & Dorfmeister Sessions, and I have a feeling most people know it better than the original (which, incidentally, isn't bad, just not as good).

All sorts of references to drugs & drug-related things, but I figure we're all big boys & girls here, no?

Kruder & Dorfmeister remixing Bomb the Bass - "Bug Powder Dust"
The Kruder & Dorfmeister Sessions

Guns! Brixton! High-pitched stringed instruments!

The original is one of my most favoritest Clash songs ev-ar, but this take is not bad at all.

Brixton is an area of South London known for it's Afro-Caribbean community. Paul Simonon, AKA bassist for The Clash, grew up there and wrote a song about armed resistance in a society with strict weapons laws.

Only The Arcade fire could take the bass out of this song and keep true to its soul.

The Arcade Fire
"Guns of Brixton"

Give me parties or give me death

This video is something I stumbled upon looking for something else, and for a little while I found myself confused. It's a bit melodramatic, overly poppy, and features a pretty silly visual metaphor but I kind of like it anyway.

Go figure.

You Say Party! We Say Die!
"Monster"
Lose All Time

(The Boy With The)

Arab Strap are less well known than the Belle & Sebastian song/album referencing the same, um, "implement of an adult nature." Both bands were important elements on the Scottish scene in the 90's, but the Arab Strap sound is darker and colder - Scotland in the winter, if you will, in contrast to the light and airy summer sounds of Belle & Sebastian.

This is one of the more cheerful, upbeat songs...

Arab Strap
"The Shy Retirer"
Monday at the Hug and Pint

Mmmm....chicken...

I remember picking up this CD in downtown Chicago, way back when people carried around CD players. Must have listened to it four times through on the train back to the north shore, the ambient sounds of the people and the train adding another layer of sound to the music.

Surreal reggae for modern living.

Dr. Alimantado
"Best Dressed Chicken in Town"
Best Dressed Chicken in Town

fever ray

oy! i haven't been in here for a long time!

but here we go: have you heard of the solo project of the female half of the knife?
it's called fever ray and it's pret-ty, pret-ty good (can you hear larry david here? yeah, been listening to too much curb...).



it's all very haunting, especially the voice, which ressembles bjork's and M.I.A.'s. Also like the retro-ish, slow keyboards. oh, Pitchfork likes it a lot.

stat!

Shakespeare & South Asia

The music starts at 0:17.

I like Shakespeare. However, I don't like Shakespeare as much as my father; my father likes Shakespeare so much he has a DVD of a a made-for-British-TV version of Twelfth Night that features Viola and Sebastian as South Asians marooned someplace in the Mediterranean during the 70's.

Nitin Sawhney wrote the exceptional music to that version, including this take on a song that appears in the play - also appearing in an album of his (from which this version is taken). Both the album and the play are well worth the time.

Just a lil' band from Cardiff. Dancing.

Los Campesinos! are from Cardiff (the original one in Wales). All of them are apparently surnamed "Campesinos!" which may or may not be a Ramones tribute.

After meeting Welsh people more than once, I now have the desire to visit Wales - I found a fascinating tendency towards surreal insanity that makes me wonder if there might be something in the water. Like maybe hallucinogens.

I figure only a band from Wales would put this song with this video. The song is about dancing and night clubs, and features a glockenspiel. The video is an animated sci-fi morality tale about the advance of human "civilization."

Los Campesinos!
"You! Me! Dancing!"
Hold On Now, Youngster...



PS - Yeah, people don't dance enough...

California love

One night at a birthday party in Buenos Aires it emerges I've spent time in the Bay Area and the conversation turns to The Dead Kennedys. I ask the interested gentleman what his favorite track is and he's so drunk he can't remember any - when he asks me mine the first one that comes to my mind is all about sex and alcohol.

Stumbled upon a drum n' bass remix/mashup of a better choice, "California Uber Alles", and Gil Scott Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (in the running for Best. Song. Ever.) - like California these days, a bit rough around the edges and a bit over the top.

Not a bad thing at all, though.

Gil Scott Heron vs. Dead Kennedys
"Revolution Uber Alles"
Audio by The Who Boys, video by The Cutter

Caguama time!

A "caguama" in Mexico is a liter bottle of beer. Could be had in a Tijuana cantina I knew about (a place so classy the men's room was a hole in the floor with a screen you could look over) for $2 US back in the day.

This is a very silly video (lucha libre, plots gone awry, surfing) to a very silly song (the bastard child of the Ramones and the Challengers) that cuts off at 1:47 or so. Before it gets tedious at any rate.

Lost Acapulco
"Caguama"

All things, considered

Remember when The Streets was new? Remember this particular track off of that album?

Looked into the Cinematic Orchestra original after finding "All Things to All Men" on a mix someplace. They're (as one might imagine) somewhat orchestral, with jazz/ambient/downtempo influences; sountrack-y in a good way.

Best with: early morning coffee-and-cinnamon-bun.

Cinematic Orchestra vs. The Streets
"Has It Come To All Things To All Men?"

Color coding

I heard it on Youtube that The Mae Shi will play your wedding, house party or bar mitzvah for $200 if you live in the LA area, so it must be true.

The sound is so thick and full it kind of does seem like there might be clones of every band member, and they play with such enthusiasm I thought they were younger.

Dig the color-coded Sesame Street-esque outfits.

The Mae Shi
"Run to Your Grave"
HLLLYH

Be very, very afraid...

Frightened Rabbit are a Scottish band of brothers, literally. Good, solid track made much better by the Scots accent and kids bouncing around in the video. Warms your heart like a drought of 18-year-old reserve on a cold winter's night, it does.

Frightened Rabbit
"Head Rolls Off"
Midnight Organ Fight

Running up the hills of San Francisco

Happy April Fool's Day!

This is a cute little track, synthpop cover of a Kate Bush classic. (There's also the Placebo version). I remember being driven around Bangkok in an '84 sky blue Corolla with a tape of the original up and the AC blasting.

I like this one better.

The track proper starts at around 1:45, lots of nostalgia-inducing images of SF to enjoy. As well as paper-cutout-and-doll April Fool's silliness.

Chromatics
"Running Up That Hill"
Night Drive