Consolation in the stardust of a bong.
Silver Jews' Tanglewood Numbers won a whole bunch of awards in my head this past year--including best lay-out, best album-opening lines ("Where's the paper bag that holds the liquor?/Just in case I feel the need to puke"), best random lines that popped in my head while I was working ("Andre was a young black Santa Claus", "His sister was like the heat coming off the back of an old TV", "Get a load of this fucking view, its the best in the west!"), etc., and it made my best of 2006 list even though it came out in 2005--that's how goddamn good it is! I could really go on and on about it, but I already did. Here's the review I wrote like a year ago for the forthcoming debut issue of The Chuds Present:

"I always figured a band called 'Silver Jews' would be terrible but then I saw that thing in Vice with those pictures of Dave Berman and Harmony Korine harassing an anti-immigration rally with a sign that said 'You are the bottom-feeders of American life so we're going to replace you with cool Mexicans' and 'Go back to Pussy-stan' and I had to re-assess things. So yeah, I'm a newbie when it comes to Berman and his Silver Jews stuff, and I have zero insight into how this compares to the rest of his shit. Has he always done low-key, later-Pavement-sounding stuff, but with a plain-spoken Southern baritone guy doing vocals instead of a smart-alecky nerdnik? Because this shit is good. It actually reminds me of being in Newark around NewarkFest time (beginning of June) for some reason, which might seem incredibly insulting if you think about the dread of seeing former high school classmates you had specific plans to avoid at all costs forever, who will undoubtedly recognize you and try to catch up with you. I guess I'm just picturing the nice weather and the wealth of human absurdity that a three-day carnival/celebration in a small rural town in upstate New York can bring out of the slowly rotting woodwork, in the most explicit, undiluted ways possible. It can be hilarious and off-putting and maybe even deeply depressing, usually at the same time or in very quick succession. All of which roughly translates to a great time, and this album is the soundtrack I'd prefer to have blasting as I'm laughing and wincing my way through it."

Silver Jews - "Punks in the Beerlight"
Silver Jews - "Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed"
Silver Jews - "Sleeping is the Only Love"

Song of the day is Sunn 0))) and Boris and Jesse Sykes' "The Sinking Belle (Blue Sheep)" even though its kind of cheesy. Runner-up is Owls' "We Are the Owls" even though its not the best Owls song.

I'll show you my endzone dance.
I try to champion Bastro as much as I can, even though I feel like a tease championing a band whose records aren't readily available, apart from the Antlers: Live 1991 record (which is more of a Gastr Del Sol practice tape) and random eBay listings. The situation was remedied briefly back in early 2005, when Drag City re-issued their two proper full-lengths--1989's Diablo Guapo and 1990's Sing the Troubled Beast--as a one-disc set, but even that cd fell out of print by the end of that year, leaving only the tiniest of windows to easily grab a copy of the best collision of the Minutemen, mid-'80s DC hardcore, and abrasive Big Black-ish stuff you will ever hear. Its seriously ridiculous, if not criminal, that these two records--not to mention their remarkable debut, the Rode Hard and Put Up Wet EP--aren't widely available, and I hope Drag City or somebody, anybody! decides to re-remedy the situation. Sing the Troubled Beast feels a little more anthemic, if still schizo, like a Revolution Summer spent locked in a sweltering basement; Diablo Guapo alternates between outright noise frenzy and goofyness, and gets more incredible on every listen. You should just start scouring the interweb for copies of these jams, you won't be disappointed (unless...you can't find them, I mean). Oh and its also worth pointing out that the dudes behind all this were David Grubbs, John McEntire, and Clark Johnson (but not this Clark Johnson, as far as I know), who have all done many, many other great things.

Bastro - "Demons Begone" (from Sing the Troubled Beast)
Bastro - "Noise/Star" (from Sing the Troubled Beast)
Bastro - "Engaging the Reverend" (from Diablo Guapo)
Bastro - "Decent Skin" (from Diablo Guapo)

Song of the day is No Trend's "Human Garbage" and I want to send it out to Tom Fields, Linda Warner, and everyone who lives in my neighborhood.

Honey, he's back from the grave.
This past weekend was a super church-y one for me--my niece was baptised, plunked down into the lukewarm holy waters and anointed with weirdo oils by a man who sings poorly, and there was much rejoicing--so its kind of fitting that I've been rockin' Loose Fur's Born Again in the USA on repeat (almost as fitting as hearing "Spanish Bombs" on the way to see Pan's Labyrinth). For those who don't know, Loose Fur is the side band featuring Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche, as well as Wilco producer and super genius, Jim O'Rourke. Their first record, 2003's Loose Fur, was great except the songs went on FOR FUCKING EVER and felt half-finished. But on Born Again..., they tighten shit up (except on "Wreckroom", but only on the second half, and the first half is fucking brilliant) and make everything super catchy, and wind up sounding like a punk rock version of Wilco that also sounds like Faraquet. I'm pretty sure everyone slept on this album except for Tyler and myself, but don't let that sour you. Its awesome on every level, the Tomoo Gokita artwork level in particular. Oh and they have a video.

Loose Fur - "The Ruling Class" (from Born Again in the USA)
Loose Fur - "Stupid As The Sun" (from Born Again in the USA)
Loose Fur - "Wreckroom" (from Born Again in the USA)

Song of the day is "The Partisan", from Leonard Cohen's Songs From a Room. Not sure if there's a specific reason this reminds me of my mom when I was a little kid, but it definitely does. Its probably just the parts sung in French.

You're thinking about equilibrium.
I've been itchin' to put some rare-ish stuff up here lately, but since my somewhat hard-to-find shit is all on vinyl and since I'm pretty ignorant on how to transfer vinyl to Tyler's computer, all that stuff is gonna have to wait. HOWEVER, I remembered I have a copy of Horses' (maybe) lone release--a 4-song cd-r they sold at one of their few shows, with Q and Not U and some annoying "dance party band"/garbage at North Six about a year and half ago. Horses featured 3 ex-Black Eyes dudes (non-shrieking vocalist Hugh McElroy and the two guys who played drums, whose names I can't remember...one of them's named Dan, I think?) and a guitarist (not sure about her name either) from DC-based mathematicians Et At It, and managed to last about a year or so before packing it in and moving on to other things (much of which can be investigated at the Ruffian Records site). They weren't too far off from what Black Eyes was for the three years they were together--a no-wavey, heavy-on-the-rhythm post-punk band that always sounded fresh and galvanizing, while nearly all of their contemporaries sounded either incredibly forced and mediocre or simply awful. But where Black Eyes seemed to trade almost entirely in desperate reactions to weird social/political/sexual interactions, Horses felt a little more subdued, even kind of spooky (low, chanted vocals; darker tones; lots of talk about death) while still throwing in the kind of polyrhythms and bass grooves you might have found on Black Eyes (but none of the free jazz skronk you might have found on Cough, unfortunately). Their cd-r sounds like it was 4-tracked or possibly even layed down on a boombox--there's literally no other information about the recording or the band aside from what's written on the cover (see image above)--so prepare yourself for some definite rawness. They played so many more songs at that show, though, and I wish they'd had a chance to lay them all down and put it out. Shit was tight.

Horses - "Track 1" (from 4567)
Horses - "Track 2" (from 4567)
Horses - "Track 3" (from 4567)
Horses - "Track 4" (from 4567)

I know I'd said that yesterday's song of the day would be "Is It Me You Really Love", but it was actually The B-52's "Whammy Kiss", if only for the part that goes "He cannot stand to go into work/when he needs some whammy love". That's pretty romantic, right? Today's song is the not-so-romantic "Grounds For Divorce" from the forthcoming Big Business jam, which is pretty much full of songs of the day. Site of the day is a pretty thorough look at You Can't Do That On Television.

Guess what?
Nostalgia sucks.
That being said, NOFX's Fuck the Kids 7" instantly takes me back to any and all events that may have happened between summer 1997 and summer 1998. This record may have been even more of a soundtrack to senior-year me than what I thought was the prevailing soundtrack (Minor Threat's Complete Discography), but at the very least (and perhaps most importantly) it was the vinyl face that launched a thousand Chuds ships--or to put it another way, it was the record that hastened my entry into the world of people who play music, via a band called The Chuds. And obviously I'm talking the original, Newark-based Chuds, not this monstrosity. I haven't paid much attention to NOFX since So Long and Thanks For All The Shoes, so I can't really say if they've gone downhill. They're still at the top of my "best of the bands I've been obsessed with at various points in my life" list, though, just based on Fuck the Kids (and Ribbed, White Trash..., The Longest Line, Punk in Drublic, Heavy Petting Zoo, So Long..., and the song "Six Pack Girls") alone.

NOFX - "Reagan Sucks"
NOFX - "My Name's Bud"
NOFX - "Please Stop Fucking My Mom"

Song of the day is The Damned's "Fish", from Damned Damned Damned. Song of the day for this past Saturday is Madvillain's "Great Day". Song for the approaching Valentine's Day Massacre (aka me working in a sub-zero blizzard) is Black Velvet's "Is It Me You Really Love" courtesy of Truth and Soul on myspace.

Today's been pretty good, actually. Wrap it uuuuppp!!

I will break my arm.
I've been rockin' David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World (aka Bowie's take on the Sabbath-y prog thing) a lot lately, and its pretty sweet. I mean it feels like he's playing with other people's ideas and hasn't quite found his voice yet (this is '72, long floppy hair time), and the lyrics are kind of cheesy, so its hard for me to really love the shit out of it. But I do like the shit out of it. In particular, I've been liking the shit out of "All the Madmen" (even with the flute solo...shit, maybe because of the flute solo) and "She Shook Me Cold"'s last couple minutes. Holy FUCK. Mick Ronson is the shit:

David Bowie - "All the Madmen" (from The Man Who Sold The World)
David Bowie - "She Shook Me Cold" (from The Man Who Sold The World)

Song of the day for yesterday was Ida's "Shrug", from their 2000 release, Will You Find Me. Song of the day for today is The Jesus Lizard's "Monkey Trick", from the almighty Goat. Fuck all that Young Widows bullshit. Runner-up song of the day is Electric Light Orchestra's "Daybreaker". Live performance of the day was Carlos F. singing "Hakuna Matata"(sp?). Thing-said-by-my-mom of the day was "Pomegranates--those are like love machines, aren't they?" Phone call of the day is "Eddie Money".

Try to be right in whatever I say.
Speaking of Talking Heads again--before the release of their Once in a Lifetime best-of box set (and its counterpart--the shorter, best of the best-of The Best of Talking Heads) in 2003, there was 1992's two-disc Sand In the Vaseline collection. And while it lacks the beautiful packaging, genius video program, and about a third of the tracklist of the Lifetime set, Vaseline does include one mad crucial song, "I Want To Live", not found on any other Talking Heads collection (or album, to the best of my knowledge). Working with the same line-up (Byrne, Weymouth, Frantz only, I think) and production set-up as the probably more well-known, brilliant pre-77 /demo track, "Sugar On My Tongue", "I Want To Live" completes what I imagine in my head to be one of the best singles never actually released from the pretty much flawless New York punk scene of the mid-'70s. If they'd never released anything other than these two tracks, they would still be one of my favorite bands of all time (although I guess I'm glad they went on to make a shitload more great songs and basically every great video ever.):

Talking Heads - "Sugar On My Tongue" (from Sand in the Vaseline)
Talking Heads - "I Want To Live" (from Sand in the Vaseline)

Song of the day is Harriet the Spy's "This Music Festival Sucks", in honor of the little album nobody wanted. Feel free to replace the words "music festival" with "motherfucking deep freeze I can feel coming in through my not-so-good bedroom windows". I need some plastic sheets to seal them up. Videos of the day are Dr. Dog's "My Old Ways" and even more Nation of Ulysses. Oh and VBS is up and running!!

Smokin' bones in the staircase.
For the past couple weeks I've listened to almost nothing but the first of El Michels Affair's Shaolin Series 45s (where they do incredible full-band instrumental covers of Wu-Tang classics), which features their brilliant re-interpretation of the gold-standard classic "C.R.E.A.M." on the A-side, and a jaw-dropping take on Raekwon the Chef's "Glaciers of Ice" on side B. Anything Wu-related is an easy sell for me (they're basically the starting point for my love of hip-hop, or re-starting point, I should say), but this shit is seriously GOLDEN. Thank you, Truth and Soul. El Michels Affair is what every soul/funk band should sound like--like they're straight out of the late '60s/early '70s and wicked wicked dusty. I think they're my new favorite band, or they're at least giving Soiled Mattress a run for their money. Its a tough call. But these jams are more guaranteed day-brighteners, life-exciterers, etc.-- so don't dawdle:

El Michels Affair - "C.R.E.A.M." (from The Shaolin Series Vol. 1)
El Michels Affair - "Glaciers of Ice" (from The Shaolin Series Vol. 1)
El Michels Affair - "Behind the Blue Curtains" (from Sounding Out the City)

Song of the day is the songs I was just talking about. Video of the day is Talking Heads' "Crosseyed and Painless", which I guess I never saw because I fell asleep the one time I tried to watch the DVD from the Once in a Lifetime set. And speaking of Talking Heads and that video and sleep--I had a dream last night that I was visiting my friend Andrew at work, and I was telling him about the video, and he was pissed because he wanted to see it but he didn't get out of work for a few more hours. And I was like, "You'll just have to wait." and it sounded EXACTLY like the part in "Stereo" (go to the :37 mark), and we both thought it was pretty strange.

PS -- You have until 12:35 PST on February 4th to snag your copy of Harriet the Spy's Anthology of Selected Recordings. What's that? You don't need it? Ummm, did you read the song titles?

It was lobster season.
As weird a time as this is to be a Dischord fan (why am I not excited about any of their new releases??), they actually put out one of my favorite records of last year with Soccer Team's "Volunteered" Civility and Professionalism. It sounds a bit like Beauty Pill or Smart Went Crazy out-takes with someone like Liz Phair singing on half the songs which...fuck it, that sounds awesome, actually. And they bring some much-needed freshness to the studio project/girl-boy/side-band game, which I had assumed was impossible (because I thought people wanted their boy-girl duos strictly crappy). Oh and I guess I should point out that the band is a duo made up of Ryan Nelson (Beauty Pill, The Most Secret Method, Routineers) and former Dischord employee Melissa Quinley, otherwise that last thing isn't going to make sense. Whoops. I don't know, I get more jazzed about this record everytime I listen to it. But don't take MY word for it:

Soccer Team - "We Closed a Record Store" (from "Volunteered" Civility and Professionalism)
Soccer Team - "Cavity Called Home" (from "Volunteered"...)
Soccer Team - "'Volunteered' Civility and Professionalism" (from "Volunteered"...)

On a related note, the song of the day is Lee Hazelwood's duet with Nancy Sinatra, "Some Velvet Morning", which really feels more like two different songs stitched together than a proper duet. Its crazy, and I like it.

"I still love horned helmets and swords and spears."
Moondog! A blind genius who dressed like a viking wizard (were there wizards in the viking community?), performed on street corners in New York City for years, and made the most perfect orchestra street jazz I've ever heard. Its awesome (and obviously shouldn't be confused with Walter Schreifels' post-GB, pre-Quicksand project)! I'd recommend starting with The Viking of Sixth Avenue, a sort of best-of compilation spanning nearly 50 years of his career that Honest Jon's (partly run by Damon Albarn, who I kind of admire because he's constantly doing new shit, but who I would probably admire more if I liked anything he did musically) put out in 2005. Lots of raw vocal rounds, jazz stomps, animal sounds, etc. Sometimes it reminds me of music that would show up in a Woody Allen film, or like Godspeed or Silver Mt. Zion or that kind of classical punk stuff--only shorter and without any of the really heavy-handed anarchist scrabba-doob, or like less California-y, wackier Brian Wilson vocal workouts--but it doesn't necessarily sound exactly like any of those things. It doesn't sound like anything else in the world, actually.

Moondog - "Theme and Variations" (from The Viking of Sixth Avenue)
Moondog - "Dog Trot" (from The Viking of Sixth Avenue)
Moondog - "Down is Up" (from The Viking of Sixth Avenue)

Song of the day is the Venom stage banter 7", originally released on Ecstatic Peace some time ago. This is a guaranteed day-brightener that would also make a stellar birthday gift for me!! Thank you Jake Fogelnest for talking about it on your Sirius morning show, and thank you WFMU's Beware of the Blog for posting it up so I could download it several hours later. Song of the day runner-up is "Who Are You?" from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I listened to Sabbath for about 6 hours straight yesterday (Black Sabbath through Never Say Die!, in chronological order) and it was tits, although I will say things start to go south slightly once you get to Sabotage (hour 3? 4?).

The British Calendar Act of 1751.
I was pretty excited reading that thing with Tim Kinsella in the last issue of Skyscraper--where he lists his 10 favorite things of 2006 or favorite things in general--because he mentioned he'd gotten really into Bill Fay this past year, just like I did (especially Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow, in my case). I guess I would've been excited if anyone had said they'd been obsessing over Fay around the same time I was, but when its someone who's been in a bunch of bands I really like and who's currently in the crazy math fun-fest called Make Believe and who called for every band mentioned in an issue of Alternative Press to break up immediately, the excitement goes up a few notches. I don't mean to focus entirely on Tim Kinsella--everyone in Make Believe is irreplaceable and incredible. This is especially true after seeing them live--guitarist Sam Zurick plays melodic to atonal computer systems (with no signs of fatigue) like nobody I've ever witnessed, drummer and wurlitzerer Nate Kinsella plays drums and wurlitzer at the same time better than most people do one or the other alone, bassist Bobby Burg never stops moving or singing (with no signs of fatigue) like no one I've ever witnessed, and of course Tim Kinsella screeches, croons, and dances Peanuts-style as he sees fit. It makes perfect sense to me, but I know it often causes people to throw a serious hissy. Here are a couple of tracks--"Political Mysticism" (which at first reminded me of Circus Lupus' "Cyclone Billy") and "Sometimes I See Sideways"-- from this past fall's Of Course to bolster your position one way or the other.

Make Believe - "Political Mysticism" (from Of Course)
Make Believe - "Sometimes I See Sideways" (from Of Course)
Circus Lupus - "Cyclone Billy" (from Super Genius)

Song of the day is "Le fille du pere Noel" by Jacques Dutronc, courtesy of the Teardrops Mixtape I got with my Soiled Mattress record. aaaAAAHHHHH the French.

Diamonds deep in the earth.
Jack Nicholson has a really good line about Stanley Kubrick in A Life in Pictures--the bonus documentary that comes with the Kubrick DVD box set (which also includes everything from Lolita through Eyes Wide Shut)--which I think goes something like, "Everyone pretty much acknowledges that he's the man...and I still feel that underrates him." That doesn't quite read on paper the way it sounds coming from Nicholson--with a little bit of cool swagger shifting to true reverence and humble certainty in the span of a few moments. But that's roughly the feeling I have about Kaki King and her record from last year, ...Until We Felt Red. The highest praise I could bestow upon Red would only be the tip of a very mammoth, very involved iceberg, which is probably the highest praise I can think of in itself. The best records tend to leave you pretty speechless and with a million things to say, I suppose.

Kaki King - "...Until We Felt Red" (from ...Until We Felt Red)
Kaki King - "Soft Shoulder" (from ...Until We Felt Red)
Kaki King - "Night After Sidewalk" (from Everybody Loves You)

Song of the day is a toss-up between "I'm Set Free" and "One of These Days"--the former from the "closet mix" of The Velvet Underground's third record, the latter a track from VU, but in this case both courtesy of the Peel Slowly and See set (you can get this for $25, GET ON THAT SHIT). Videos of the day are "20 minutes of The Nation of Ulysses in South Dakota" and Das Oath's "Awesome Rape". Magazine cover of the day is from the February 2007 issue of Outdoor Life (you have to lean in really close to see it).

All the songs have been sung.
Das Oath's exit from the stage this past year was a major blow to all us kids who spent our formative years feeling our hearts swell like deformed balloons with punk pride, only to feel those hearts deflate and come vomiting up out of our throats when the majority of the really great bands fell apart, leaving only the truly benign, often awful shit to reign supreme. For seven years they did it right, progressively righter and righter, right up until 2006, when they released arguably the two best records of their career--the (technically released in limited numbers at the end of 2005, but more widely released in 2006 so I'm going to count it) brilliant mini-epic Mini-LP, and the "holy shit!" hit in the face that was their 11" (Who's Your Daddy? to those of you on the Coalition mailing list). The Mini-LP is the absolute perfection of their brand of layer-of-noise over alternately speedy and dirty rock 'n roll 'core, while the 11" is that same perfection after it has completely lost its mind, almost teetering (and, graciously, not fully barging) into Blood Brothers territory. And then they had to spoil it all by quitting just when we (me, you, everyone, etc.) probably needed them the most. But I was able to see them on their fairwell tour, at a random house in Albany, and it was just as fucking awesome as I could've hoped. For me they left this world exactly how they'd entered it--playing utterly confused and pissed to the point of losing it hardcore in a basement and running into me for about 20 of the best minutes of my life. RIP:

Das Oath - "Tightened, Solidified, Cracking" (from the Mini-LP)
Das Oath - "Occupant/Applicant" (from the Mini-LP)
Das Oath - "The Terror, the Delight, and the Unendurable Pointlessness of Trying" (from the 11")
Das Oath - "Years of Veneers" (from the 11")

The song of the day for Sunday the 21st is "Better All the Time", courtesy of Scene Creamers (aka Weird War), from one of the best records in many years, I Suck On That Emotion. A nice counterpoint to the Das Oath eulogy I just typed up and a thrilling example of how far something like the Three's Company theme could have gone.

Oh and Cryptograms is up on eMusic a full nine days before its official release, just so you (and I'm talking to possibly as many as two people when I say "you") know.

The Pope is coming over.
I'm going to use yesterday's mention of Bobby Bare, Jr. as a way to segue back into talking about my favorite records of 2006, which happens to include his (and his Young Criminals Starvation League's) album, The Longest Meow. My record collection might suggest otherwise, but I have serious reservations about new-school country-rock stuff, but only because it can get pretty insufferable and pretty hokey, and because I'm not always in the mood to prematurely enter my thirties (or even actually enter my thirties). I can make an exception in Bare's case because The Longest Meow is pretty loose and pretty on point (if you can be both of those things at the same time), the lyrics are good, and, not counting a few iffy vocal affectations, he seems to be coming from a real place; a real, human, sometimes absurd place. And the whole record's got a nice raucous Replacements vibe (not to mention a song like "Demon Valley" reminds me a lot of "Swingin' Party" off Tim), which is always a good thing. I like "Gun Show" a lot, too. A couple of the slower numbers, but you can't help what you like:

Bobby Bare, Jr. - "Gun Show" (from The Longest Meow)
Bobby Bare, Jr. - "Demon Valley" (from The Longest Meow)

Song of the day comes from the Minutemen--"The Product"--off their Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat EP. My favorite songs always have the most boring titles. And I swear that, vocals and trumpet line aside, this is what Ten Tents jams sounded like. This or Shellac.

"The dollar dances on our ASSES!!"
Sam McPheeters is on myspace. Repeat: SAM MCPHEETERS IS ON MYSPACE. Stop what you're doing and go look. You can come back to this later, or not, it doesn't matter. If you want to continue getting on the McPheeters train, check out the following:

Wrangler Brutes - "Chaos Collides" (from Zulu)
Sam and Joe - "Save the Children" (from the Feer of Smell compilation)

Other good news: Dr. Dog and Bobby Bare, Jr. touring together! This is to me in 2007 what Piebald and Saves the Day might have been in 1999. Yes, that's high praise! Humiliating, cringe-y high praise, but high praise nonetheless. Today's song of the day is this video for "Philip's Head" by Soiled Mattress and the Springs. I guess another song of the day could be "The Seasons Reverse" by Gastr Del Sol, from their album Camoufleur. I've taken up an "if I see a Gastr Del Sol record, I'm buyin' it" policy and it has yet to let me down. What's up, Joan of Arc? Ohhhhh, snap.

"That makes me want to punch someone."
Fuck it, here's the Chad Clark and Basla Andolsun radio hour(s) that I was talking about last week. Bear in mind that this is a pretty huge file (2 hours and 37 minutes; 144.2 MB), but also bear in mind that this will make your life 1000% better. And if you don't believe me, if you have the audacity to doubt my veracity, check their playlist and figure on 5-30 minutes of awesome banter between some of the tracks:

Stevie Wonder - We Can Work It Out
PJ Harvey - You Said Something
The Monks - Complication
A Tribe Called Quest - Love
Talking Heads - Air
Fugazi - Latin Roots
Cymande - Zion I
Fugazi - Place Position
Buzzcocks - Get on Our Own
Morrissey - Sing Your Life
Mary Timony - Blood Tree
Lynn Collins - Think (About It)
Beauty Pill - Rideshare
Chuck Berry - Maybellene
Beastie Boys - Sabotage
Rufus Wainwright - The Art Teacher
Tricky - Black Steel
Beatles - Tomorrow Never Dies
The Branford Marsalis Quartet - Doctone
Jeff Buckley - Nusrat, He's My Elvis / Yeh Jo Halka Halka Saroor Hai

Chad Clark and Basla Andolsun on Dissonance/Radio CPR (12.05.06)

Oh and today's song of the day is "Was", from Vincent Gallo's 2001 album, When. I've been trying to find a spot for this on various mix tapes for people for years and it never fucking works. Today's spoken word track of the day is Gavin McInnes and Derrick Beckles talking about veggie burgers, etc. (look under Latest Updates--DO IT!!).

Don't. Even. Write.
I was just talking about The Breeders' Safari EP the other day, and how I had no idea it existed until a few months ago, when I stumbled upon this sweet Beat-Club-ish video on YouTube. I mail-ordered the shit out of it before the video was even done playing, I think. It was a powerful moment! But yeah, obviously this was still during the Tanya Donnelly-era, although I guess it was at the tail-end of that era, and its got a certain Now We're Even feel to it, at least on "Don't Call Home", but maybe that's just me. You also get the unfuckwithable title track (my top choice if I could only pick one Breeders song to cover), a superb pre-Last Splash version of "Do You Love Me Now?", and a rollicking good-time cover of The Who's "So Sad About Us". Basically this is more proof that The Breeders rule, and confirms my suspicion that EPs kick the shit out of LPs.

The Breeders - "Safari" (from Safari)
The Breeders - "Don't Call Home" (from Safari)

Additionally, the song of the day for today (and maybe everyday from here on out) is Z.A.K.'s remix of Clipse's "Mr. Me Too". I cannot stop listening to it!

Cryptotunity.
Its taken me a month or so, but I finally figured out that the new Deerhoof record (Friend Opportunity) is really really really good. It feels weird at first, especially if you've listened to The Runners Four about a hundred times or if you've seen them absolutely shred live at the Andy Warhol Museum. But if you can listen to it a few times in your car, take a break from it for a few weeks, burn it for your friend, bring it to her house, and listen to it while you eat chocolate cake, it'll sound like the best record yet-to-be-released in January of 2007. Check out a crazy 11-minute jazz jam and another song found elsewhere on the record, and a My Bloody Valentine cover from the free EP they released last year (which I'm pretty sure you can download from someplace here):

Deerhoof - Look Away (from Friend Opportunity)
Deerhoof - Choco Fight (from Friend Opportunity)
Deerhoof - Lose My Breath (from the Free EP)

The other January record from a Deer- band I'm really looking forward to is Deerhunter's new jawn, Cryptograms. They used to creep me out, maybe due to the combination of the slightly unsettling rhythmic punk and the very unsettling cover art of Turn It Up, Faggot (sometimes called s/t, though I can't imagine why). But they seemed to have gotten way spacier, if still a little weirded out. I've been obsessed with "Spring Hall Convert"--which is streaming with a few more Cryptograms jams on their myspace page--since my drive down to see Deerhoof (and Brady and Breille (far left)). I also really like "Tree Spies", so here's that, too.

Deerhunter - "Spring Hall Convert" and others (from Cryptograms)
Deerhunter - "Tree Spies" (from the Deerhunter/Alphabets 7")

And finally, the song of the day for today is "Trio" by King Crimson, from their album Starless and Bible Black, which is damn good. Thank you, Tyler.

Yeah, nobody's reading your mail.
Crap, crap, crap. I was going to say do yourself the hugest favor in the world and check out the December 5, 2006 episode of Radio CPR's Dissonance program, which featured Chad Clark and Basla Andolsun from the band Beauty Pill spinning songs they really like and talking about music, but CPR's online library doesn't have it up anymore. So I guess...do yourself a favor and build a time machine?? Sorry, suckers! No seriously, I wanted to share it with whoever would possibly read this because they are--and, though I certainly could, I'm not going to go on and on about them, I'll save that for my 33 1/3 book about The Unsustainable Lifestyle--a band who's existence makes the music world a much better place. And that's been drilled into my head a lot over the last couple days as I've been listening to their two-hour-plus program that's made up mostly of Chad Clark saying the best shit ever and Basla Andolsun picking songs I would've picked if given the same opportunity. I don't know, check here repeatedly and maybe they'll put it back up.

Beauty Pill - "Rideshare" (from The Cigarette Girl From the Future)
Beauty Pill - "This is the Hidden Track" (from With Literacy and Justice For All... compilation)

Gettin' Higher Than Gas Prices.
On the plus side, you can and should download the new Talib Kweli/Madlib collabo, Liberation, which Rappcats has graciously provided. I think Madlib became my favorite producer while I wasn't looking, or perhaps while I was compiling Doom mixes and putting on way too many Madvillain tracks. I still love Doom, though!

Sound Directions - "Dice Game" (from The Funky Side of Life)
Quasimoto - "Seasons Change" (from Bully's Hit 7")