Monday, June 20, 2011

This Week's Countdown: Many Changes

All of the songs moved either up or down this week, save one. Which one? You will have to listen to find out!

Countdown #60

***Featuring***
The Airborne Toxic Event
The Black Keys
Death Cab For Cutie
Foster the People
Foo Fighters
Incubus
Mumford & Sons
Rise Against
Seether
Sublime With Rome

Sunday, June 19, 2011

My Birthday

So, my birthday is coming up and for it, I'm going to try one of a couple new podcast ideas.

All day on July 16 (my birthday), I'll be watching my Google Reader (where I read my blogs) and I'll be listening to every song posted in blogs on my list. I'll download my favorite song from each post (because the posts often have more than one song on them) and doing a podcast where I talk about the songs and the blogs that they came from. In between songs, I'll also talk about the posts that didn't have any songs in them.

It should be a lot of fun (despite how dry the previous paragraph may have sounded) and I'm really looking forward to it! For instance, Daytrotter posts at least one session every day, so you know there'll be a Daytrotter track on there.

If you'd like to be on my list (or confirm that you are already on my list), leave me a comment!

Like I said, this is one of a few ideas I have for some new podcast shows. So watch this space in the upcoming weeks and months!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Russian Roulette (Blog Version) - 3rd Round

Well, it's appropriate that today is my wife's last day of responsibilities at school and our Russian Roulette song is a punk song from Fat Wreck Chords heroes No Use For a Name. I am not too worried about this song getting me in trouble. Punk rockers are on our side, right? :)

This album is a fast-paced rocker that's perfect for the first days of summer. Get the whole thing, listen to it, and wreck your living room.....or someone else's living room.....ok, maybe leave the living room alone.

No Use For a Name - Leave it Behind from Leche con Carne! (buy from Amazon) or (buy from the label!)

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Creepy Love (A Poem and Two Songs)

A reading of this poem came up on my iPod this evening. It goes from "almost uncomfortably intimate" to "maybe I should call a cop..." but the intimacy never leaves. Some of the imagery is pretty horrifying, but also pretty great. I feel good about these three works being in the same post.

Lovesong
by Ted Hughes

He loved her and she loved him.
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Off that moment's brink and into nothing
Or everlasting or whatever there was

Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His words were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assassin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
Her vows put his eyes in formalin
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall

Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face


This is also called "Lovesong":
The Cure - Lovesong from Disintegration (buy) (or on MP3)

But this poem feels a bit more like:
Alkaline Trio - Nose Over Tail from Goddamnit! (buy) (or on MP3)

Monday, June 13, 2011

King Post Kitsch Review: The Party's Over and I'm Sad

I'm writing this on Monday, June 13. And as I'm writing, I'm sad. It's because I made a pact with myself almost two weeks ago and I'm really planning to stick to it.

Matthew from Song, By Toad and Song, By Toad Records sent me a review copy of the new King Post Kitsch album The Party's Over (which, as it happens, comes out TODAY!). It's an album, that I've been looking forward to hearing since he played "Walking on Eggshells" back in January. I downloaded it and put it on my iPod on June 2nd, telling myself that, rather than just saying, "How awesome is it that I got is album I was intending to buy, absolutely free!", I would give myself two weeks to listen and review and fall in love with it and then I would erase it from my hard drive. That way, I'd go through withdrawal and NEED to buy it for my birthday, as I and been intending.

And my plan worked. I am absolutely head over heels in love with this damn album. Everything I liked about the EP's is here in spades. I think the best exampe of what I'm talking about is the transition from Track 2 ("Don't You Touch My Fucking Honeytone") to Track 3 ("Fante's Last Stand"). The former is a rocker the likes of which I haven't heard since I was first listening to Arctic Monkeys and the latter is a song that wouldn't be out of place as a soundtrack for lying in a field picking out cloud shapes. They SHOULD feel totally out of place being played back to back. But that's not how King Post Kitsch rolls.
KPK is all about the "what could possibly come next?" factor. And that's why I love this album and why I'll be playing it hard for the last three days of my review period and why I'll be ordering it and the "Don't You Touch My Fucking Honeytone" 7" as soon as it isossoble to justify it as a "birthday purchase".

King Post Kitsch - Fante's Last Stand from The Party's Over (BUY!)

Sunday, June 12, 2011

A New Countdown and Perhaps My Favorite Flashback Song, Ever!

So, along with the Flashback song being a better song than I even remembered, I think I've determined that there are at least 2 songs that will be on my end of year "Best of" List! Try to guess what they are. You might be surprised!

Countdown #59

***Featuring***
The Airborne Toxic Event
AWOLNATION
The Black Keys
Death Cab for Cutie
Foo Fighters
Foster the People
Incubus
Mumford & Sons
Rise Against
Sublime With Rome
Toad the Wet Sprocket

Monday, June 6, 2011

The Podcast as a Well-Oiled Machine

THIS, my friends. This is how I always want the podcast to go. It's Monday night. The baby is sleeping. I knocked out the podcast and had fun doing it. It's a pretty exciting little episode. Only three songs stay in the position they were in last week! I hope that I can continue to stay on top of this podcast. I enjoy it even more when it's punctual! Plus there's the factor of the unknown. Recently, I've been a week behind, so I was doing intros knowing full well what the song did the following week. And I haven't had that recently!

I'm going to have to use some of this extra time to make the Flashback countdown for August!

Countdown #58

***Featuring***
The Airborne Toxic Event
The Black Keys
Cage the Elephant
Death Cab for Cutie
Foo Fighters
Foster the People
Green Day
Incubus
Mumford & Sons
Rise Against
Sublime with Rome

Thursday, June 2, 2011

BLUE BIRD!

So, when I put on the Metamorphosis EP by Blue Bird, I know that I'm not going to hear just one band. The Omaha-based band moves fluidly from gospel to rock to girl group with such grace that, even after many listens, I'm still caught off-guard. One example of this fluidity occurs at 3:03 of "Everything Can Change" and it never fails to give me goosebumps. This is surely a band to keep your eyes and ears on.

Blue Bird - Everything Can Change from Metamorphosis EP (which you can download for FREE over at their Soundcloud site )

They're on tour this summer and I would highly recommend you get out and see them!


6/25 Red Sky pre-festival showcase (venue TBA), Omaha NE
6/26 Big V's, Minneapolis MN
6/27 Elbo Room, Chicago IL
6/28 Wilbert's, Cleveland OH
6/29 Labyrinth, Jamestown NY
6/30 Hennessey's Hooley House, Boston MA
7/1 Pianos, New York NY
7/2 National Underground, New York NY
7/3 TBA, Philadelphia PA
7/5 TBA, Washington DC
7/6 Elliott's Revue, Winston-Salem NC
7/7 Rye Bar, Athens GA
7/8 TBA, Nashville TN
7/9 TBA, St. Louis MO

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

When did the countdown get so mellow?

I think it's the transition between #6 and #5 that really got me feeling like this is one mellow countdown. I know #3 and #9 and #10 totally cancel this out, but for a bit there, it's super-chill.

Countdown #57

***Featuring***
The Airborne Toxic Event
Beastie Boys
The Black Keys
Cage the Elephant
Death Cab for Cutie
Foo Fighters
Foster the People
Incubus
Live
Mumford & Sons
Rise Against

Also, I love this song:

Kimya Dawson - Looking Out the Windshield (Daytrotter Session) (I know it says Aesop Rock is on there, too, but unless he's playing a guitar, it's just her on this one)

and this one too

Kimya Dawson and Aesop Rock - Delicate Cycle (Daytrotter Session)