Not a lot to say really...mostly posting to put up some new songs and
some photos of a recent trip up to the redwoods
over the long Thanksgiving weekend. And also to postthe most
awesome comic strip of all time...
"Hear
that good flop, then? Listening to that gives me the turkey fever.
Mmm, I wish there were as many turkeys
as there are buzzards."
Calexico - Letter
To Bowie Knife. Probably my favorite band of all time
that is named after a border town.
Bonus: Roka.
Chris Bell - I
Don't Know. Chris Bell managed to record one solo
record before he died, very much
cut from the same cloth of his band Big Star. It was kinda tough
just picking a couple of tracks from this pop
gem of an album.
Bonus: Speed Of Sound.
El Perro Del Mar - God
Knows (You Gotta Give To Get). Whenever this record
came out, you would have
been hard pressed ot find a music blog that didn't have this song
posted. This is generally a sign of overhyped
crap that I avoid, but I'll be goddamned if they didn't get one right
for a change.
Bonus: I Can't Talk About It.
Morrissey - Ganglord.
Couple of B-sides from "The Youngest Was the Most Loved" single.
As per usual,
Morrissey's B-sides are better than nearly everyone elses A-sides.
Bonus: If You Don't Like Me, Don't Look.
Radiohead - Headmaster
Ritual (Smiths Cover). Speaking of Morrissey,
Radiohead recently did a live
webcast and played this Smith's cover in the process. The sound
quality ain't great, but not terrible either.
The Pink Mountaintops - Single
Life. Oh shit, I'm actually posting a new song!
I was never sure if the Pink
Mountaintops are a side project of Black Mountain or vice versa or if
it really even fucking matters, but what I
do know is that this song slays.
Why? - By
Torpedo Or Crohns (Remix By Dntel). Oh shit, another
new song! Don't get used to it, by the
way. This is from the forthcoming EP by Bay Area genre-mashing
masterminds Why?, easily one of my favorite
groups working (local or otherwise) over the last few years.
***November
Nineteenth
Two
Thousand and Seven***
Don't half step to the Mouse - she'll bat you in the face. She is
ferocious.
The other night I went out and took some long-exposure night photos on
Alameda. I'm pretty pleased with some of
the results, but unfortunately there are some strange lines on the
scans I got back. Hopefully it was the scanner and
not my camera...click on the thumbs if you want to see larger versions.
In other news...
One of our many fine readers, Nick, sent in some photos of dogs from
Taiwan. Some are in sweaters, some aren't, the
one above is even in a track suit apparently. But possibly even
more interesting than the dogs is the character standing
in the right corner of the photo above. I want those glasses.
"I like to think of
Jesus as a mischievous badger." Brian
Wilson - Heroes
And Villians. Couple of tracks from the
finally-officially-released "Smile". Yeah, it isn't
true "classic" Beach Boys, and Brian's voice don't pack th same punch,
but the songs are still very strong and
plenty entertaining.
Bonus: Vega-Tables.
Portastatic - Sour
Shores. Lead off and best track from the band's most
recent album "Be Still Please."
Honestly,it sounds more like a track that would be on one of the more
recent Superchunk albums than what you
would expect from Mac's side project.
The Shout Out Louds - Normandie.
Pure pop glory on the sophomore effort from this pack of Swedes.
Saw
them live recently and it was really damn good. It is impossible
not to sing along to this band.
Bonus: Tonight I Have To Leave It.
The Electric Soft Parade - Silent
To The Dark. I checked these kids out mostly because a
couple of them
make up a big chunk of one of my favorite groups of the last few years,
Brakes. It's fairly straight-forward britpop,
nothing groundbreaking,but they have quite a few worthwhile songs on
their debut record "Holes in the Wall" from
a few years ago.
Bonus: Start Again.
The Hidden Cameras - Death
Of A Tune. Probably the gayest band in my entire
collection. Not that there is
anything wrong with that, to quote Seinfeld. These songs are
taken from their third full length "Awoo" the band put
out last year; a good record, but it's got nothing on their sophomore
release "Mississauga Goddam."
Bonus: Lollipop.
The Secret Machines - 1000
Seconds. And speaking of not being as good as the
previous albums, the "Ten
Silver Drops" LP this track is taken from can't hold a candle to the
brilliant "Now Here Is Nowhere", also their
second release. The more I think about it, the more obvious it
becomes that the whole "sophomore jinx" doesn't
actually exist. Maybe it's really that third record that causes
the hang-ups.
Two Gallants - Steady
Rollin'. Folk punk or hip hop? You decide.
