"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 think the Artists of the Year countdown is consistently my favorite show of the year. It's a fun way to look back at my listening habits and generate a pretty eclectic show to boot! Enjoy it! I know I will!
***Featuring***
Barenaked Ladies
The Beatles
Blink 182
Bob Dylan
Busta Rhymes
Cast of Hamilton
Diet Cig
Kendrick Lamar
New Found Glory
P.O.S
Radiohead
Smashing Pumpkins
Well, I think the sick voice is finally gone! And there's some new music on the countdown! So everything is looking way way up! I hope you enjoy this one as much as I enjoy putting these countdowns together. It's a fun way to spend an hour!
***Featuring***
Blink-182
Cage the Elephant
Green Day
Judah and the Lion
K.Flay
Kings of Leon
The Lumineers
P.O.S
Rag'n'Bone Man
Stinking Polecats
twenty one pilots
The 1975
***Featuring***
Blink 182
Cage the Elephant
COIN
Diet Cig
Green Day
Judah and the Lion
K Flay
Kaleo
Kings of Leon
The Lumineers
The National
P.O.S
twenty one pilots
So here we are in 2017 and it's time for another Artists of the Year countdown. A LOT of familiar faces that got shoved into the bottom 10 of the Top 20. So it makes for a very interesting list. I hope you enjoy it and I'll see you very soon for our RSP (Reg. Sched. Prog.)
***Featuring***
Barenaked Ladies
Blink-182
Bob Dylan
Leslie Odom Jr.
Modern Baseball
New Found Glory
NOFX
P.O.S
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Ruth B.
The White Stripes
It feels like this one took a long time to put together. Fortunately, it's a great episode and it features what I believe is my very first editor's note! So look out for that!
***Featuring***
All Dogs
Bastille
Bishop Briggs
Blink-182
Cage the Elephant
Green Day
The Head and the Heart
Kaleo
The Lumineers
Phantogram
P.O.S
The Starting Line
twenty one pilots
It's time for another episode of Alternative hits! I was thinking that so few of these songs are what would typically be thought of as "Alternative" in the 90's definition. And I think that's a very good thing.
***Featuring***
Bastille
Bishop Briggs
Blink 182
Cage the Elephant
Fitz & the Tantrums
Kaleo
The Lumineers
P.O.S
Red Hot Chili Peppers
twenty one pilots
The White Stripes
The title of this post, in case you were worried, just comes from my having had that part of that song in my head when I was typing it. Not a cry for help, just a bit of sing-a-long!
It's a VERY exciting show this week, I think you'll agree, so I'll let you get to it! Enjoy!
***Featuring***
AWOLNATION
blink-182
Cold War Kids
Empire of the Sun
Fitz & the Tantrums
The Lumineers
Miike Snow
P.O.S featuring Moncelas Boston & Sophia Eris
The Strumbellas
The Struts
twenty one pilots
Vampire Weekend
We have some shakeups this week and some new music by a musician that has been on the "Artists of the Year" countdown since its inception in 2010. So get excited for that! Woo!
***Featuring***
The Bluetones
Cage the Elephant
Cold War Kids
Coldplay
Foals
Nothing But Thieves
P.O.S
The Strumbellas
twenty one pilots
Vance Joy
X Ambassadors
It's almost 3 am as I'm typing this. I have to operate a motor vehicle tomorrow, so I should make this quick. I'm sure I'll be talking about this song all year long, so I don't need to be exhaustive in this post.
Eariler today (or, like, yesterday? Sunday.) P.O.S posted on Facebook (and probably other places too) that he would be releasing a new song on Monday. I was looking at Instagram when I saw that he had posted the album art.
Even though it's late, I realized it might be on iTunes. And it is.
And it's great. You guys. It's almost 9 minutes of P.O.S plus everyone from Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill (and Le Tigre) to Astronautilus to his son, Jake (who goes by the name Hard_R, which is a fantastic name).
It's weird and intense and great. And you should buy it.
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!
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
This album was the gateway into Doomtree and Dessa and all of that, so it is very important to me. The really funny thing is that I stumbled on it basically by accident. The year was 2009 and I was taking my sister to her first Warped Tour. I had made a list of all of the performers scheduled for our date and was going through and listening to the top song listed for them on Last.fm. Just to get an idea of what we might want to check out.
So the top song for P.O.S was "Drumroll (We're All Thirsty)" so I checked out the video. And was blown away. I was completely enthralled and confused and excited. What was this? It was like rap made by punk rockers.
Well, that turns out to have been a biographically accurate statement. Stef was in a punk band before he was a rapper. That background shows on all of his album, but I think it's most evident on this one. There are punk rock samples, punk rock ideas, and punk rock guest vocalists.
It's still way up there on the list of "Hip-hop albums that don't sound like anything else out there" along with Madvillainy and Enter the 36 Chambers.
I decided not to feature my all-time favorite song from the album "Low Light Low Life" and I think the reason is that I feel like it would be giving away gold. It's TOO good a song! You can check it out on YouTube or Spotify or whatever, but I really want everyone I know to own a copy of this album.
So let's get on that, shall we?
OH! I also didn't feature the song that samples from the movie Knocked Up. It's a pretty amazing sample.
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!
So, the Marijuana Deathsquads remix album of P.O.S's We Don't Even Live Here album finally has a release date. It's coming out on Tuesday 10/22/13! That's so soon! It'll be available here and it'll be free!
To get everyone hyped, they released another track from it. Here's the remixed version of "Lock-picks, Knives, Bricks and Bats"
So, with Doomtree Records, there are several projects that are legendarily always being worked on. One of them is Cecil Otter's sophomore album Porcelain Revolver. And another is the collaboration between P.O.S and Astronautalis, (who isn't technically a part of Doomtree, but is a very close associate) Four Fists.
Well, after a bunch of social media hints yesterday, there was an official announcement via the mailing list and on the Doomtree website about the release, on October 8, of the first two songs from this project. It'll be a 7" with the song "MMMMMHMMMMM" on the A-side and an as yet unnamed B-side.
If you don't want to click on either of those links before you hear exactly what the song sounds like, well, here you go. I think you'll be very convinced:
You can do the standard pre-order, which gets you the above song upon ordering, a 7" in red, blue, white, or clear (I got clear), and download codes for both songs and their instrumental versions included with the 7".
OR You can get the deluxe pre-order which comes with the above plus a t-shirt and a Four Fists pin. Pretty cool stuff.
So I was just looking for the latest episode of P.O.S is Ruining the Current (Which doesn't appear to have an episode from last Saturday...at least nothing archived yet.) and I found that P.O.S has a tumblr. No big surprise there, but I found two things I want to share with you from it.
The first, is this remix of "Piano Hits" from his latest album We Don't Even Live Here which is apparently "the first taste of Marijuana Deathsquads’ upcoming remix album of
P.O.S’s We Don’t Don’t Even Live Here, entitled 'POS WDELH MDS RMX' " which is a very exciting prospect. I love when a remix completely changes the flavor and feel of a song
The second thing I wanted share is this picture. I haven't seen it posted anywhere else and I think it is so great. It's P.O.S pushing Dessa on a swing and they're both clearly having a blast!
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!
