the list of now

Sorry, Katy Perry…

Aside from being totally unimpressed that you kissed a girl and you liked it…

Beach House just has a better Teen Dream.

and my inner teenager ((hearts)) them hardcore right now.

weekend short list

What I am up to this weekend.

1. Catching some of Pitchfork Music Festival (streaming live on my computer)

I’m not at Pitchfork in Chicago, but this is the next best thing.   Tommorrow there are sets by Cass McCombs, Beach House, St. Vincent and Pavement.

2.  Discovering new music I like.

This morning I caught the last half hour of weekend edition and there was a short interview with a singer-songwriter called Samantha Crain, who is excellent.

Interview
www.samanthacrain.com

3.  Finishing books 4 & 5 of Scott Pilgrim.

The 6th and final volume, Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour, comes out next week!  I want to have read them all by the time I see the movie!

4.  Seeing “Inception”.

Aside from the delicious Nolan-ness of it all, I’m not gonna lie, I’m really looking forward to sitting in air conditioning for a few hours right about now.

5.   Obsessing over Beechwood Sparks

I really hate when I’m 8 or 9 years late hearing about a great band, but music really is better late than never!   While reading the Scott Pilgrim books, I noticed Bryan Lee O’Malley wrote a playlist of songs in the back of one of the books and they were on it.  He specifically loves their amazing, amazing jangly cover of the Sade song “By Your Side” (and secretly loves the original!)  And I do too (on both counts).

I will leave you with this:

Listen Up!

Five places to get a (good) free music fix!

I love my music collection, but sometimes if I don’t add new tracks to my digital mixes,  my itunes will start to get that “not so fresh feeling” and I have go on a downloading frenzy.

I have recently come across a few freebies from artists I already know and love.  There are also a couple of mainstays that I visit for the purpose of discovering (and falling in love with) new music.

I love free things.  I love exploration.  And I love to share.

To make things easier, I am only highlighting free downloads or free full track streams, because I hate samples.  I can’t spend any time with the samples and form an adequate relationship. (I also can’t stand spending loads of time on Myspace, even though streaming music is readily available.)

So here you go.  If you have any additions or recommendations, please leave them in comments!

1. Mates of State (official site)

They have a new album (they call it a mixtape) called Crushes.  It’s a cover album of 10 tunes and it’s lovely.  You can stream the entire thing for free.  It’s worth a listen.  I especially like their version of “Sleep the Clock Around” by Belle and Sebastian.

The tracks “Laura” (Girls) and “True Love Will Find You in the End” (Daniel Johnston) are available for free download if you put in your email, they send you the link.   AND if you decide you want all of the tracks or just want to support Mates of State cause they are awesome, you can download the whole thing for only $5.  Really.

2.  Beach House (official site)

You can listen to or download 2 tracks from each of their 3 albums.   I’m particularly fond of their newest album Teen Dream and admittedly am not as familiar with the earlier ones.  I hope to rectify that soon.  Getting to hear a couple tracks is a good way to start.   “Norway” is one of my favorite songs of this year.  It’s weird and catchy and wonderful.

For all my Chicago friends, they are in the Pitchfork lineup this summer.  I highly recommend catching their set if you are going, and I will be jealous, jealous.  For my New York friends – anyone want to buy me a ticket to their show in Prospect Park at the end of the month?

3.  Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

At Rcrdlbl.com, download two of their tracks, including my favorite-favorite song right now “Home”.

Nothing more to say about this one.  Just go do it and enjoy that f’n song.  It’s soooooooo good.

4.  Fanfarlo (official site)

Free download from their homepage of a 3 track “College Radio” Ep, alternate recording versions of three of the songs off their album “Resevoir”.  You can also stream several others from their site.  They recently  put on an excellent (and free) show at Waterplace Park in downtown Providence.

5.   Urban Outfitters (a goldmine of free music from several great artists, including many you haven’t heard of… yet)

I link-loved the Urban site last summer for offering a free summer mix to people on their email list.  I didn’t keep up on this and failed to realize that they have been doing this ALL YEAR.

The LSTN mixes are basically 25 completely FREE song downloads via itunes offered for a limited time only.  Right now LSTN 9 and 10 are still up, so go get on that!  However, for exploration purposes, ALL the other past offerings are available to stream for free.   There are some great tunes on there.

They also have “Music Monday” which features 5 free downloads every Monday.  These don’t appear to expire.  There are several here that I haven’t heard of, and again, I don’t need to tell you how I love love love discovering new music.

BONUS:  NPR First Listen

I track this site religiously.  There is ALWAYS something there for me, an exclusive first listen to an entire album streaming before its release.  I fell in love with Neko Case’s last album weeks before I could buy it.

Right now, I highly recommend you give this album a listen.   It’s “Dark Night of the Soul” – the collaboration album from Sparklehorse, Danger Mouse and David Lynch, featuring a whole lot of amazing guest vocalists – Wayne Coyne (The Flaming Lips),  Black Francis (The Pixies etc.), James Mercer (The Shins, Broken Bells),  Iggy Pop, and even David Lynch himself (singing!).

It’s a bit sad to listen to, because it’s difficult to not think of the recent suicide of Sparklehorse (Mark Linkous), but it’s a beautifully complex and compelling piece of work and I’m glad that it’s being put out now.   The album will be released July 13th.

Aggressive Apathy, It’s a New Year Edition

The beat between apathy and rabid, nagging, annoyance.  Do I have distaste for these things?  Not necessarily, I don’t care enough.  I start to develop exposure angst, when I do not I wish to see, hear, read, or discuss them EVERYWHERE.

So, it’s 2010, now.  Can the media and my co-workers stop discussing the following?  Probably not likely, but I will keep wishing for these to go away:

1.  Kings of Leon.

They had one of the most boring, excessively-played singles that I’ve heard in years and yet, everyone on earth seems to think they are brilliant.  I don’t get it?  Use Somebody could be a fucking CREED track.   It seriously could.  Doesn’t anyone else hear that?

2.  Jon + Kate + anyone else involved with Jon or Kate.

I heard enough about these assholes in 2009 to last several lifetimes.  Enough already.

3.   Tiger Woods.

Before the scandal:  ((yawn))
Now:  ((yawn))

Whatevs.  Moving on.

4.  Teabaggers.

It’s not even fun to laugh at their stupidity anymore.  The self-proclaimed “leader” of the “movement” was recently on NPR demanding to be taken seriously, and now a picture has surfaced of him holding a sign that not only features the N-word, but spells it wrong. Seriously?

Not one person or one thing associated with this is relevant to what is happening politically in our country.  I think waiting for them to disappear by ignoring their existence is called for in this case.

5.  Reality TV Personalities.

Conrad, Kardashian(s), Jersey Shore, Laguna Beach, Duggar Wingnuts, Any Housewives Anywhere… You don’t exist on my radar.  I broke up with cable a while ago and if you aren’t famous for contributing anything original to culture that is interesting or meaningful – i.e. you are famous for having a camera crew follow you around – I absolutely claim the right to not acknowledge your existence and ban you from all conversation and commentary in my presence.  Fuck you all and even more, fuck the  medias that elevated you to any amount of status.  Some of it was interesting at first and every now and again, morbid fascination has gotten the better of me.  But I’m just sick of it now.   And more so, it’s long ago crossed over into replacing actual news, culture and quality programming.   It’s all jumping the shark at this point.   Enough already.

Bob Dylan sings Christmas in MY heart!

Call me crazy, but I think Bob Dylan’s Christmas album is totally wonderful.

I feel like everyone is missing the point and that it’s supposed to be campy and a bit ridiculous.  I mean, look at the picture he chose for the album cover!  I feel like he knows how he sounds on these songs and doesn’t care or did the arrangements intentionally to clash a bit or poke fun.  I also feel like none of that really matters because when I listen to it, I giggle and feel happy and Christmas-y and that’s the point isn’t it?

Listen to this great 5 minute critique from Ken Tucker on NPR’s Fresh Air.  You can hear some of the tracks and Tucker pretty much agrees with me, but says it with perfect balance of mocking/love:

Among those criticisms is the odd complaint that Dylan’s voice sounds awful. I’m sorry, have you not been listening to Dylan for the past decade — or for his entire career? An imperfect vocal instrument is at once characteristic of Dylan and a limitation he’s frequently turned to his advantage. And as far as the idea that covering songs such as “Christmas Island” and “Here Comes Santa Claus” is cornball, well, the flip-side of cornball is amusement in context. Dylan, producing himself under the name “Jack Frost,” is surrounding himself with sweet choral voices and arrangements straight out of a 1960s middle-of-the-road or “countrypolitan” album. It’s just that instead of hearing Johnny Mathis or Eddy Arnold crooning, you have Dylan croaking with both solemnity and a wink.
.
Come on — that’s fun, in the manner of other Christmas songs ranging from Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby” to the Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping.”

…

And Dylan does make his slow, deliberate version of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” sound more like a threat than a promise.

(that’s accurate and hilarious)

And yet I love it.   Darcy loves it too, although I suspect more ironically.

She had this to say about the album:

Someone needs to take the microphone away from Grandpa Dylan.

I can’t wait for the day after Thanksgiving when I am “allowed” to break out all the Christmas music and movies.  I will be sharing this album with (or inflicting this album on)  all my loved ones!

“Glee” Does Springsteen?

Or at least they hope to soon.

Entertainment Weekly reports:

If you’ve read the Glee cover story in the latest issue of EW, you know there’s one artist above all whose music the Fox series’ brain trust is aching to take on: Bruce Springsteen. “I think Bruce is our next holy grail,” Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy told EW. “My musical tastes begin and end with him basically,” added co-creator Brad Falchuk.This is all strictly hypothetical for now. Springsteen’s camp had no comment when asked if he’d be interested in licensing his music to Glee. But hey, that’s no reason not to get some early speculation going — because this is an awesome idea.

I agree.  The article goes on to ask for our suggestions.  So here are my top three Springsteen tunes I would like to see someone in the Glee cast sing:

1.  Thunder Road
You can hide beneath your covers and study your pain.  Make crosses for your lovers, throw roses in the rain.  Waste your summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from these streets.

I mean seriously.  That has high school angst written all over it.

2.  The River

Not likely, but I had to add it.

3.  Brilliant Disguise

Ok, so you’ve probably all heard the radio version which was blanketed in some 80′s cheese studio crap, but it’s secretly a great tune.  Go find a live version, especially one of him singing it with Patti.  It will break you.   Also the likeliest of my choices to make it on, and the one potentially most suited for the storylines.

Now, getting real, they will probably choose “Born to Run”,  “Born in the USA” or “Dancing in the Dark.”   Whatevs.  I will still be excited to see it on there.

And if it happens to be on the episode that Joss Whedon directs, my brain is going to explode a little bit.

h/t to fellow Bruce fanatic, Andrew Sims, who twittered the link to this fabulous gossip