2018 Artists of the Year

Bob Dylan, 1965

ANOTHER ONE! That's right another podcast from this guy right here (me, not Bob). I am feeling absolutely on fire with podcasting right now and I'm hoping that it lasts!

This is the Artists of the Year Countdown for 2018 and there are some surprises in here, let me tell you. Of course if you look down at the "Featuring" section, some of it will be ruined, but I think you'll still enjoy it a lot!



2018 Artists of the Year

***Featuring***
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Barry Adamson
The Beatles
Blink-182
Bob Dylan
Dessa
Echo and the Bunnymen
Fall Out Boy
New Found Glory
NOFX
Rx Bandits
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

12 Years of Last.fm (Part 5) (#10-1)

P.O.S

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!


12 Years of Last.fm (Part 5) (#10-1)

***Featuring***
Barenaked Ladies
The Beatles
Blink-182
Bob Dylan
Dessa
Doomtree
fun.
New Found Glory
NOFX
P.O.S
Smashing Pumpkins

New Countdown: More Top Ten Countdowns Than You Can Handle!

Foster the People

This week, the intros kept having things where I counted something down, so if you like lists that are organized in some sort of ascending order of importance, this show is for you!


Countdown #385

***Featuring***
Dessa
Foster the People
Imagine Dragons
lovelytheband
Muse
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats
Panic! At the Disco
Silage
Sir Sly
Thirty Seconds to Mars
Two Feet
Vance Joy

New Countdown: Now With More Poetry Reading!

AJR

And so March goes out like a lamb. We're in for one more week of our March Artist of the Month and then I also read a poem! It's a very fun one and the songs remain excellent! :)


Countdown #376

***Featuring***
AJR featuring Rivers Cuomo
Alice Merton
Blink-182
Dessa
Foster the People
Imagine Dragons
The Killers
lovelytheband
Moon Taxi
Muse
Pennywise
Portugal. The Man
Walk the Moon

New Countdown: In Like a Lion, Gone in a Moment

Pennywise

New month, new countdown songs, new Dessa, new Artist of the Month! It's a lot of newness on here and I get into some lyrical interpretation that takes us into a deep dive into the device of false narrative continuation. It's a good time :)


Countdown #372

***Featuring***
AJR featuring Rivers Cuomo
Alice Merton
Beck
Dessa
Foster the People
Imagine Dragons
The Killers
lovelytheband
Pennywise
Portugal. The Man
Walk the Moon

New Countdown: Actions That We All Do

The Revivalists

I can't believe how close to the end of the year we are! Before you know it, we'll be doing the Year-End Countdown, the Artists of the Year Countdown, and then we'll be back on the countdown grind! It's amazing how time flies when you're going 10 to 1.


Countdown #362

***Featuring***
Alice Merton
The Beatles
Beck
Dessa
Foo Fighters
Imagine Dragons
The Lumineers
Portugal. The Man
The Revivalists
Thirty Seconds to Mars
Vance Joy
Walk the Moon

New Countdown: Don't Get Fooled!

Imagine Dragons

It's easy to start thinking that you know things based on what I play and when I play it, but don't be so easily fooled! Maybe me saying that will make it so you aren't fooled, but maybe not! Enjoy the show in either case!


Countdown #355

***Featuring***
Bad Veins
Beck
Cage the Elephant
Dessa
Green Day
Imagine Dragons
Judah & the Lion
The Killers
Portugal. The Man
The Revivalists
Vance Joy
Thirty Seconds to Mars

New Countdown: August When It's an Adjective

Cage the Elephant

And we're into August now! The big reveal of the first Artist of the Month happens in this episode (for those of you who don't regularly read the blog...)!!!

It's a good one and it has new Dessa in it. So I mean, what are you waiting for? Me to stop writing things? Oh, ok.


Countdown #306

***Featuring***
Bastille
Bishop Briggs
Blink 182
Cage the Elephant
Dessa
Fitz & the Tantrums
Kaleo
The Lumineers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
twenty one pilots
The White Stripes

2015 Artists of the Year Countdown!

Fall Out Boy

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!


2015 Artists of the Year Countdown

***Featuring***
Barenaked Ladies
The Beatles
Dessa
Diet Cig
Doomtree
Fall Out Boy
NOFX
P.O.S
R.E.M.
Smashing Pumpkins
Taylor Swift

New Countdown: I Feel More Comfortable Now, I Feel More Comfortable Now

The Struts

After a whirlwind weekend, I'm finally back with a new countdown! To make it up to you, there are two additional tunes on this one! Enjoy!


Countdown #265

***Featuring***
AWOLNATION
Beck
Cold War Kids
Coleman Hell
Dessa
Elle King
Florence + the Machine
Mumford & Sons
Sisyphus
Speedy Ortiz
The Struts
twenty one pilots
X Ambassadors

New Video: Dessa "Sound the Bells"

Well, Dessa has a new video out for her song "Sound the Bells" it's serene and peaceful, but also kind of dark, and I'm not sure where I get the darkness from, but it's there, I swear.

2014 Artists of the Year Countdown

St. Vincent

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!!


2014 Artists of the Year Countdown

***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

Festive Fifty 2013 Top Ten

And this catches us up to last year! You can look at similar posts from the previous Festive Fifties, or listen to the new episodes for this year as they come out by clicking the Festive Fifty tag at the bottom of the page!

10. Josh Ritter - Joy to You Baby
9. The National - I Should Live in Salt
8. MS MR - Hurricane
7. Arcade Fire - Reflektor
6. Bastille - Pompeii
5. James Blake - Retrograde

4. Dessa - Skeleton Key

3. Dessa - Fighting Fish

2. Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams - Get Lucky

 
1. Lorde - Royals

TWO Doomtree Updates! (Dessa Video and New Track!)

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"!

Dessa is coming to the East Coast this Fall!!

Dessa: The Appetite For Distraction Interview 4

 Somehow this is the 4th of these sets of questions that I have sent to Dessa and the 4th set that she has graciously answered for my rural little blog (you know, like if my blog was a city and visitors to the site were the population?). I've really tried to get some weird/interesting/insightful questions going so that it's not the same interview that you'd read everywhere else, and I think I've done an okay job at that this year.

Here are links to the previous Q&A's: 2011  2012 2013


1. One of my favorite songs from Parts of Speech is "Skeleton Key". Whenever I listen to it, I think of it in the context of the P.O.S-led No Kings track "Bolt Cutter". Both are about tools for gaining access to previously forbidden areas, but a skeleton key grants access and leaves no trace, while a bolt cutter is more destructive and forceful. Was "Bolt Cutter" lurking anywhere in your mind when you wrote "Skeleton Key"? Or am I just seeing patterns in the clouds?

I hadn't realized a connection before now, but, yes, I see the point you're making. The songs differ in tone, but I think the lyrics to both talk about bucking convention. 

 

2. I was so delighted and pleased to listen to your episode with Jason Ritter on Wits. I had never heard of the program before, but I was so interested to see the comedic acting side of you that we sometimes catch glimpses of in between songs at shows. What was it like to record?

Terrifying. I almost tried to squirm out of the gig. I'm a planner by nature which makes live, competitive, improve sound like a special, miniature hell. But in the end, the show was good, there was chocolate backstage, and we were triumphant.

3. You performed two cover songs on your Wits episode (Beastie Boys' "Fight For Your Right to Party (as part of an amazing sketch) and Paula Abdul's "Cold Hearted Snake" (my all-time favorite PA song. No lie.). In addition to that, you have a GORGEOUS cover of Bruce Springsteen's "I'm Going Down" on Parts of Speech. What is your process for picking covers to perform? What do you think makes a good cover? Is there any chance that "Cold Hearted Snake" will make it into your set for your next tour?(, he asked with fingers firmly crossed)

The Beasty [sic] Boys song was actually performed by Janey Winterbauer, she's a cast member on the show and is a super accomplished singer about town. (I am astounded to find this out. I guess I didn't even realize I was making an assumption!)  My dad is always encouraging to do more covers, but I've only tackled a few. A good cover is tough to pull off--they're cheesy, they're boring if they're too faithful to the original, and they're often overwrought if they're not faithful enough. I like covers that put the original song through a new filter, give it en emotional resonance that wasn't evident in the original recording. As of the Paula cover, no plans to make that one a regular part of our set, though I wouldn't be surprised if we played it again once or twice.

4. What is your Mom's favorite song on Parts of Speech?

That's a very sweet question. I don't know the answer for sure, but I think it might be "Annabelle" and I'm pretty sure it's not "Warsaw." 

5. You recently read The Omnivore's Dilemma as part of the #Lithop book club that you started. One of the sections of the book finds the author making a meal entirely out of local foods that he can grow, hunt, or scavenge. If you were to make a meal out of only things you could grow, hunt, or scavenge from your apartment, what would that meal consist of?

I'm going to presume that "scavenging" does not include hunting for lone peanut-butter M&Ms lost in the corners of my kitchen. I kept a plant for a while, hoping to grow red bell peppers, but the touring life doesn't suit the potted plant very well. I took him with me on a trip or two, but he died all the same. I think I'd be destined for a similar fate if I were to try and live on food I grew myself--not a hell of a lot survives in a one-bedroom apartment whose primary occupant is out-of-town for weeks at a time. I have, however, become a much better cook after reading Pollan's stuff. Most recently: mushroom farro. You cannot fuck with my mushroom farro.

6. What are the chances of Doomtree releasing a live album?

Zero. Our live show is an amazing thing to experience, but not very amazing to as isolated audio the next day.

7. If you were given 24 hours to explore (but not interact with) any part of the world, would you rather go 200 years into the past, or 200 years into the future? Where would you go?

Past. The future would freak me out too much, I think. Maybe Spain. 

8. Do you think Doomtree could have made as big an impact as it has if it had been started 20 years earlier, when the Internet and social media were vastly different, if they were available at all?

Tough to tell. If we were working 20 years ago, we wouldn't have the internet at our back. On the other hand, we'd be in an era where people still bought records. So we'd either be totally obscure and broke, or we'd be signed to a major and filthy rich.

9. There's a poem in your recent chapbook (A Pound of Steam) called "Kept Company" about a couple of imaginary friends. It's SO detailed and so mapped out. It feels like you wrote the rules that imaginary friends have to follow. Did you have any imaginary friends as a child?

I still have a lot of imagined conversations, some out loud, some in the privacy of my head. As a kid, I don't remember having a regular, imagined companion, but I think that I had a lot of one-sided conversations then too.

10. What's next for you in terms of touring. I know that you just came off, I think it was, 13 straight years of touring, but once you've rested, when's the next time you make Mountain earn his keep? Another solo tour? A Doomtree crew tour? A completely acceptable answer to this question is, "I don't know, man. Get off my case! Geeez"

The band and I are gearing up for some touring in April; we'll be hitting markets in the Midwest. Then (drumroll) I will be heading to Turkey in May to have my head expanded. After so much focus on my music and my career in 2013, I'm eager to spend some time learning about what other people in the rest of the world are doing--get out of my own shoes for a while. There is some very tentative talk of an autumn tour, but it's strung through with 'if's and 'maybe's. In the meantime, I'm doing a little bit of work in the classical field, I'm working on a new choral piece to be debuted in Minneapolis in October. 

Thanks, James. 

Thank YOU, Dessa, for your amazing answers. You are single-handedly making me feel like a real interviewer!

Until next year, I leave you with one of my favorite pictures of Dessa (from the Doomtree website):

 

One Year, 100 Albums: #31 Dessa "A Badly Broken Code"

Dessa A Badly Broken Code, 2010

This is a weird feeling. Usually, I am excited to talk about an album, but I haven't thought very in depth about it, usually because it's an album I've known since high school or college. But this album is different. I have only known about Dessa for about 4 years, but readers of this blog will know that she is one of my all-time favorite artists. Actually, she's one of my all-time favorite PEOPLE. And so I have lots and lots of thoughts about this album.

First, why did it not even break the top 30 of this countdown if I love her so much? Well, the main reason is that my way of ranking albums was, as I've said from the beginning, flawed. But there are a number of things that keep it from being much higher. I hate to say it, but the male vocals in this album's version of "The Chaconne" are a big reason. It takes me out of the feeling of the album. And that's not even an issue anymore. If she was recording this song today, I'm sure she would have collaborated with Aby Wolf on some killer harmonies. I guess that MAIN reason it's so low is that it's still a relatively new album and it hasn't quite attained "classic" status in my mind yet. But it's getting there.

After such a huge paragraph about why it isn't as high as it could be, it's time to tell you about why I love this album. Those reasons are a little harder to nail down. It has something to do with her confidence, I think. There's also something about the particular genre that she falls into. She has a way with words that makes her an amazing rapper, but she also has a fantastic voice, which, it would stand to reason, makes her an amazing singer. The album is an exploration of most of the possibilities available to her. There are delicate story-songs ("The Chaconne"), crew anthems ("Crew"), a little trip-hop ("Seamstress") and two songs consisting almost entirely of just her voice ("Poor Atlas" and "Into the Spin") (I say "almost entirely" because "Into the Spin" has at least a....cello? I think it's a cello.)

I decided on this list before her sophomore album "Parts of Speech" came out, but I think that I would still have picked this one over the follow-up. It's not that PoS isn't amazing. It is. You should get both. But this decision falls into the category of the rawer material winning out.

If this blog has a theme, "Get everything Dessa releases", is certainly in contention.

If you're still on the fence, watch the video below. It's a great display of both her rap skills and singing chops. Plus, she's gorgeous which certainly doesn't hurt.

Dessa - Mineshaft II
Dessa - Seamstress

You can buyA Badly Broken Code on Amazon, Amazon MP3, iTunes, the Doomtree store, and the Doomtree Bandcamp page

2013 Artists of the Year Countdown! Some new some old!

Barenaked Ladies, ca 1996

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!

2013 Artists of the Year

***Featuring***
Barenaked Ladies
The Beatles
Dessa
Doomtree
Fall Out Boy
Frightened Rabbit
NOFX
P.O.S
Smashing Pumpkins
Vampire Weekend

My Favorite 6 Albums of 2013 Told in 6 Videos.

I'm going to keep this very simple this year. Here is a video from a song each from my Top 6 albums of the Year. I couldn't quite come up with 10. Not that I didn't enjoy 10 albums this year. I just couldn't pick a 7-10. Make sense? Awesome.

6. Frightened Rabbit - Pedestrian Verse

5. Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

4. Chance the Rapper - Acid Rap

3. Fall Out Boy - Save Rock and Roll

2. Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels

1. Dessa - Parts of Speech

Dessa - The Lamb (Music Video)

In addition to the Four Fists news this morning, the other big thing coming out of the Doomtree camp today is the new Dessa music video.

Maybe a month ago, Dessa posted a picture on Instagram of her with bleach-blonde hair and I, and a number of friends I talked to, were very surprised that she'd made such a HUGE hair decision.

Well, this video explains it. It's simple and cool and just very Dessa. My favorite part is the part with the earrings. Dessa loves little more than HUGE hoop earrings.

Enjoy! Oh, and if, for some reason, you haven't already bought Parts of Speech, you can get it at the Doomtree Store or Dessa's Bandcamp page or iTunes