"Look at all his music post thingies." --My High School Drama Teacher
Q: How many kids with ADD does it take to change a light bulb?
A: You guys wanna go ride bikes?
MP3's
Ok, MP3's on this blog (designated by the links that seem like maybe they're songs) are for sampling purposes. So, if you like something you find on this site go buy some stuff by that artist. Go see a show.
If you're not happy that I put an MP3 up on this blog, just email me to take it down and it'll be down.
All MP3's are up for 10 days. Or when I remember to get take them down.
If you want to email me to say hi, ask me to take something down, ask me to put something up (i.e. bands wanting me to check out their music), or anything else, email me at aodblog@gmail.com. You can remember it because it's the Appetite FOr Distraction blog!"But James, you say, why isn't it afdblog?" The answer is, of course, I didn't pay attention to the letters in the initials of my blog. Le sigh.
Well here we are, in the last episode of the 5 part countdown of the top 50 artists that I've listened to in the past 12 years (2/14/06-2/14/18) and there are very few surprises here, so maybe the surprises are the order that they're in? Or maybe the surprises are the friends we made along the way!
I'm getting this one up somewhat earlier this week because I'm going down to Richmond for the weekend. I'm seeing friends, family, and meeting new friends!
So I will be on this radio show called Sound Gaze at 11 am on Saturday (6/25) so here's the link if you're interested. If you aren't able to listen live, I believe that the episodes are archived at that same link! So, enjoy!
We've got some great music on this episode too, so your music dance card is filling up fast!
***Featuring***
Arthur Russell
blink-182
Cold War Kids
Doomtree
Fitz & the Tantrums
Kaleo
KONGOS
The Lumineers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Strumbellas
The Struts
twenty one pilots
It's funny. I usually think of this as the last countdown of the year, but really it's the first countdown of the NEW year! So, Happy New Year and I hope you enjoy this countdown as much as I enjoyed making it!
***Featuring***
All-Time Quarterback
Atlas Genius
AWOLNATION
Cold War Kids
Coleman Hell
Death Cab For Cutie
Diet Cig
Doomtree
Elle King
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats
Silversun Pickups
twenty one pilots
X Ambassadors
After hinting at it last night with a series of mysterious Instagram posts, Doomtree released a new music video today. It's for "Generator," one of my favorite songs on All Hands. Watch it below.
Also, they are apparently releasing new tour dates on Monday, so watch doomtree.net/events to find out when they'll be coming to a town near you.
I have most of my voice this week! There is LOTS of movement on the chart this week! We have FOUR bonus songs this week! It's a good week. You're going to like this one.
***Featuring***
Arctic Monkeys
Big Data [featuring Joywave]
Blink-182
Cage the Elephant
Doomtree
Foo Fighters
Happy Fangs
Hozier
Imagine Dragons
Milky Chance
Modest Mouse
Vance Joy
Walk the Moon
Just as the Year End Countdown (which went up last week) closes out the year, the Artists of the Year Countdown kicks off the new one.
Sometimes it feels like it's the same artists every year, but I think there's enough variety and variance to still make it a fun listen. Hopefully you agree!!
***Featuring***
The Beatles
blink-182
Dessa
Doomtree
Idina Menzel
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
New Found Glory
Paramore
P.O.S
Smashing Pumpkins
St. Vincent
So the new single from the forthcoming Doomtree crew album All Hands (Out on 1/27) has a video. And it's weird. And menacing. And fun. And funny. Check it out and enjoy!
So, here this is! A day later than scheduled but a day EARLIER than last time it was late, and that's what they call, in the industry, "improvement"!
It's the penultimate countdown-based-on-a-new-chart of the year, you guys, so soak it in. I love when we have a run of weeks with debuts every week. I'm not necessarily hinting at anything, but i'm not necessarily NOT hinting at something
***Featuring***
Bastille
Big Data featuring Joywave
Cage the Elephant
Doomtree
Fall Out Boy
Foo Fighters
Hozier
Imagine Dragons
Milky Chance
Vance Joy
Walk the Moon
So, Doomtree dropped a new track from their new album today. AND ALSO ANNOUNCED THE ALBUM! It's going to be called All Hands and it'll be coming out on 1/27/15. I'm so excited. Here's the track. It's called "Gray Duck"
Well I *was* just going to post the new Dessa video for one of my favorite songs on the album (and #3 in this year's Festive Fifty) "Fighting Fish" so here THAT is:
But then Doomtree dropped a new crew track as a teaser for the upcoming album that they've been working on this summer. I haven't even listened to it yet, and will be listening to the embedded track below. So I'm very very stoked to embed it and hit "Publish"!
Sometimes you're lucky enough to be following a group early enough that you get to witness them achieve master status. That was the case with No Kings and Doomtree.
In their respective posts for this series, told the story about discovering P.O.S and I think I told the story about finding Dessa a little bit later. Man, I hope I did. So, anyways, I'd seen the whole Doomtree crew in concert and followed them on Twitter and all of that when they announced that they had a release date for their next crew album and that they were heading up to a cabin to record it.
This was a bold move. What if something had gone wrong? What if they hadn't like what they came up with at the cabin? Most of the group spoke/tweeted about how much pressure it added to select a release date before anything had been recorded. It was like Babe Ruth calling his shot.
And then they knocked it out of the park.
This is the first album that I've ever felt addicted to. An album that, as it ended, for the longest time, I found myself thinking, "Well, it's not like I'm NOT going to listen to this again right now." Part of it has to do, I believe, with the way the last track, "Fresh New Track" (arguably the best song on the album) ends without a concluding downbeat.
But it's also the fact that this album is expertly sequenced. I'm talking from track to track on the album as a whole, but also from rapper to rapper on individual songs. The way that the emotional weight shifts when you move from a Dessa verse to a Mictlan verse? Amazing. The way Cecil Otter's verse on "Team the Best Team" hits the ground running? Exhilarating. The entirety of "Little Mercy"? Breathtaking.
The whole thing is captivating from start to finish and it's my hope that everyone who has been reading these posts will take a moment to at least listen to the tracks below. You won't regret it.
This is one of the rare albums that we can actually go to the AFD archives and look at my original review. So let's do that and then we can watch the video and listen to the songs. Setting the Wayback Machine for November 2011....
Doomtree - Little Mercy
Doomtree - The Grand Experiment
Here we are again for another Artists of the Year Countdown! It's good fun, though, as happens every year, it feels like I have a list of 4 or 5 (or 6) standbys that are ALWAYS on this list. But that's ok. I like them! That's why I listen to them!
This is the third year I've sent the lovely and inspiring Dessa a list of questions and she has been so gracious as to answer them. As usual, I was blown away by the depth and thoughtfulness of her answers.
Here are links to the previous two Q&A's: 2011 and 2012 1. You mentioned in the interview you did with WCPN that the working title for the album (not the ACTUAL title, but the title that's on all the files) was Candy Falcon. What is a candy falcon? Is it a bird made of candy? Or is it someone who sees candy from far away and swoops in to nab some? A year ago, I was working with the guys in the band: Sean, Dustin, and Joey. We'd come up with some ideas for the record and Dustin was ready to save them on his computer. He asked "Do you have a name for this one yet?" I didn't. So we figured that a working title was in order. I think I suggested "Falcon," but that sounded too simple. So we spent a few minutes making up a fake name that felt more sophisticated. Given my pretty incredible sweet tooth, "Candy Falcon" seemed like a great fake title.
Dessa's WCPN interview from 1/10/13 (includes performances of "Palace" and "The Man I Knew" (NEW SONG) ) (Dessa's portion starts at 28:35) 2. A recurring image in Doomtree lyrics that I've noticed is that of the burning candle. It appears in "If and When", "Little Mercy", and in the title "A Candle in Chicago" among others. Have any of you intentionally picked up on this image? And do you think there's any symbolic reason behind its repeated use? I actually had to look up "A Candle in Chicago," turns out that's an interlude on a Doomtree release from 2007. Who knew? Very often, songs go by their working titles internally, so none of us remember what the things are actually called. There are a lot of themes and images that Doomtree seems to orbit--sometimes we all find ourselves independently fascinated by the same thing. Sometimes, I'm sure we inadvertently infect each other with ideas.
3. Have you made any progress on A People's History of the United States since last year? If you're keeping score, I still don't have a copy, so you're already outpacing me! NONE. 4. Did your trip to Africa influence the writing of your new album in any way? New instruments? New images? New ideas? My trip to Africa influenced my prose--after I came home I wrote an essay for the Star Tribuneabout how a safari challenged my ideas about the thoughts of animals--but it's probably too soon to know if any of what I saw will end up in a lyric. 5. Are you and P.O.S planning to co-headline a tour this spring/summer or are the sounds you'd be delivering too different to make a cohesive show? This summer, I'll be touring my new record, which is usually a headlining endeavor. Meanwhile, P.O.S is still being mindful of his health--he's got a pair of lousy kidneys and is waiting for a transplant. I think it'll be a while before we're on a routing together, but I expect there'll be a few big crew shows that we'll play together this year. 6. When you're writing/recording an album, do you avoid listening to other music? Or perhaps do you listen to music that is the polar opposite of what you're writing/recording? I guess this question boils down to: Does listening to other music affect/distract your process?
I'm adamant about fending off obvious influences. When I'm working on something new, I try to avoid listening to artists who I might be tempted take cues from. Having just finished a record, I've been listening to music that's very different from my own: polyphonic Corsican music and some Parisian folk. (Until I wrote that sentence, I thought I was listening to those artists because they were working with different instrumentation and very different melodies--but it occurs to me that I can't understand the words in these songs, which make them pretty safe listening for someone who's anxiously fending off influence as a songwriter.)
6a. Obviously, I'm going to ask you for some examples of the polyphonic Corsican music and Parisian folk you've been listening to.
Ha, no sweat. The Parisian artist is Pauline Croze. Maybe she's better described by a word like rock. Or just pop. I don't know, I'm just lousy with those sort of distinctions. Maybe she's just really soft, slow, feminine metal.
The Corsican stuff I'm going to play close to my chest--I still harbor a distant fantasy of working with them some day and I'm keeping that card in my sleeve.
7. Do have favorite tracks from "We Don't Even Live Here" and/or "Snaxxx"?
Mike and Stef made a really incredible song when they wrote "Get Down." Every night we play it on tour, it's a demonstration of the degree to which human behavior is affected by music. It's like a tide--organic, irresistible.
P.O.S + Mike Mictlan - Get Down (Official Music Video)
P.O.S + Mike Mictlan - Get Down (Live at First Ave.)
My predilection for more melancholy sentiments makes "How We Land" an easy favorite--contagious, propulsive, aching.
8. Do you have a favorite publication/source for interesting/thought provoking articles?
Still looking. I make a lot of resolutions about reading, and I end up falling off the wagon as soon as the thing starts rolling. I'd like to be a little more consistent, but in practice, I'm a binger--binge study, binge writing, binge Nutella (fork of it in hand at the moment). That said, my brother just put me on to damninteresting.com. Can't vouch for it yet, but looking forward to my next doomed resolution.
9. What's the most difficult part of being on the road for months at a time? I would imagine it would be a close race between a) waking up in places other than your home (a concept presented to me by Jackson Browne in "The Load Out") and b) trying to find acceptable food in a new city each night.
First, it must be said, that I love hotels. Every time you slide the electronic key card and push the door open, it's like a scratching a lottery card. Will there be a full bed or a king? Will there be a minifridge? Does that couch pull out? Could that be a piece of choc-o-late on the coverlet?
For me the hardest part of touring is sleep deprivation. I know a lot of musicians who can function quite nicely on 5 or 6 hours a night. I am not a member of that set. Deep fatigue makes all the little stresses of tour tough to handle gracefully--the rush, the bodily pains, the detours, the late arrivals, rushed load-ins, lousy food, whatever. And after more than a couple of weeks of exhaustion, I get emotional. It doesn't take much to make me sad or angry--which is not a good starting position for a person who lives within 3 feet of her colleagues for 17 hours a day. All said, however, I've got a hell of team. If you're going to be encased in an speeding van for a great deal of your life, you've got to pick some great travel companions. And I ride with some incredible players, and some incredible people.
That'll do it for the Q&A. I'll tweet you the link when I've published it. Hope to see you in DC soon. Take care. Get some sleep! :)
Please do! I'm hoping to head your way soonish. Hard to sweep the same region too frequently, but I give us a 36% of heading through in May.
I will take those odds. You can find her published tour dates, as well as the tour activity of all of the other members of the Doomtree crew, HERE. Details of her SXSW appearances haven't been listed yet, but keep an eye on that page and you'll have that info soon enough. If Dessa is performing near you, you owe it to yourself to see her. Trust me.
I don't normally take this job lying down, but, fun trivia fact, I recorded this entire episode lying down....wait, I really hope that, at this moment, you're not thinking to yourself (or SAYING OUT LOUD!) "Yeah. It shows." But I don't think it does.
This is always an easy episode to record because I know these artists so well. Of course I do! They're the Artists of the Year!
So this post is just going to be 3 videos. The first is my favorite song from the collaboration album of Jay-Z and Kanye West: Watch the Throne. It's called "Niggas in Paris"
And I still love that song. I feel like it's different than the rest of the album. And I like that. The next song, however, is I guess a parody of it by Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) that I saw on The Needle Drop today. It's called "Niggas in Poorest"
And I think that is just fabulous, also. I think it's smart and funny and poignant. And it is so very Mos Def.
That part about "Don't Get Caught Up in No Throne" reminded me of No Kings so, once again, here's Doomtree's version of "This Land is Your Land", "Bolt Cutter"
And that's mostly what I've been thinking about today. Rap music.
This is one of my favorite episodes of the year. I look forward to it and I think that all my anticipation has paid off. I had so much fun putting it together and I think you'll have a lot of fun listening to it!
5. Wild Flag - Wild Flag A big part of this year, for me, was about female led bands. And one of the best female led bands was Wild Flag. This is a supergroup, but only if you're pretty familiar with the 90's riot grrl scene, which I am not. When I listen to this album, and the same goes for when I saw them in concert, I hear four women IN LOVE with rock and roll. It's refreshing and entrancing. And addictive.
4. Original Broadway Cast Recording - The Book of Mormon God, what an amazing set of songs. I'm probably never going to see this musical on Broadway, but I almost feel like I don't need to, with this in my life. My favorite superpower of Parker and Stone is their ability to tease and mock and flat out ridicule something, all the while filtering the bullshit down to the essentials. This musical is about belief and how important it is to believe in something, even if it seems weird or stupid to other people. It was so hard to pick a song to feature from this. So I went with some exposition, to draw you into the story!
3. King Post Kitsch - The Party's Over Oh dear. I love this album so much. I think it's the effortlessness that gets me most. Charlie doesn't seem like he's breaking a sweat as he's cranking out song after song of glorious rock. It's catchy, it's addictive, it's hummable, it's amazing. I hope that 2012 is as full of KPK as 2011 was! For the featured song, I've chosen the song that started it all for me, nearly a year ago.
2. New Found Glory - Radiosurgery 2011 was a great year for music, if you ask me. But the cherry on top of it all is this. New Found Glory charging back into my heart with this album of the kind of pop-punk genius that I have been yearning for from them, or Blink, or Green Day. Don't get me wrong, though. You can tell that these guys have matured as songwriters. I would feature "Summer Fling, Don't Mean a Thing" because that's maybe the best song on the album, but I wanted to show that there's even more to love, if you've already heard that one and you're still hesitant (although, I don't know how you can still be considered "sane" if that is what's happening for you)
1. Doomtree - No Kings I don't even know where to begin. I suppose I could direct you to my review of this album less than a month ago. I had to wean myself off of this album. I'm still not sure why it hit me so hard. And it's not like all my friends are listening to this so I'm being social about it. In fact, I feel quite miserly about Doomtree in general and specifically about this album. Because what if someone listened to it and didn't like it? Or didn't get it? Or didn't like it as much as I do? It kind of feels like I'm dating a girl from outside my circle of friends and feeling wary about introducing her around. It's not that I doubt my taste. It's that I doubt everyone else's! And I mean that in the best of ways. You should buy this album and love it deeply. Like I do. Oh, and when you love an album as completely as I love this album, it's damn near impossible to pick a song from it to feature. So here's my best shot
