Archives : all posts by Dan

Alec Ounsworth - "Wide Awake"

A big damn slow dance for your Monday. One of those country songs that gives up on itself, the saddest kind. Yeah, that's why the song is important too. He writes songs with a real purpose; someone was hurt, a wrong decision was made, a part died. So it starts fiery out of the gate, and wails and cries and peaks, but reaches a point, where it seems to say "yeah, you get it, and so do i, so I'll just play the best part now and get it over with". For the world, for the world, for the world.

[album apparently coming soon]

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The Spinto Band - "Oh Mandy"

I see a person (androgynous) fired backwards out of a cannon, watching only the world that's already gone. I think they would land in the water, under which some crowned seahorses would be singing those really high parts (turn it up!).

[Buy]

happy birthday, karin.

Hi Lo Trons - "Look, Wow"

Why do I like this song if what I like is missing? What I like about Hi Lo Trons: Mike Dubué's spastic seizure-vocals that yell and splatter over every song. What's here: vocals filtered through some sort of chimey chorus filter that gives the slightest brushes of the real thing, but mostly keep it hidden in orange angels. I like it because it doesn't sound like Hi Lo Trons, it sounds like something new. So, I'll probably buy this new album too.

[site, CD release in Ottawa Dec. 3]

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The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir - "Things I Forgot"

It's a painting, not a sunset. The hay is real but out of place, the coach is made of wood, but wood that used to be a hi-fi. The straw hat is from Value Village (1.99! deal!) and the overalls were used to paint the rumpus room. We're watching from a folding chair, he's up on a stage, swinging his legs underneath, pant legs folded over to hide the Kodiak on his boots.

The guitar picking. That's real. That's it.

[Buy]

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ALSO: Good friend of all of us at StG, and good friend of each and every one of you, David B, has joined the ranks of Popsheep. Everyone go say welcome.

The Chalets - "Fight Your Kids"

The percussion reminds me of one of those impressive hand-clapping games girls used to play in the schoolyard. You know, where the words that go along with them end in a dirty word that midway through become a non-dirty word and start the next line.
And his vocal melody makes me think of an air horn; a nice-sounding one.
I read on a blog this band compared to Modest Mouse (???) in the sense of "Thank God for the Chalets, that Modest Mouse was sucking." Well, if you're thinking that, stop, it's wrong. a) the comparison is unworldly b) this song is, in my opinion, their best, but I would skip it if it were on a MM cd.

[Buy]

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Soltero - "The Prize"

Ahhhh. My hands are behind my head, and my feet are up on the table. I'm typing this with my toes so forgive any spellinaeknjfnjgvinvnfjsahad. No song needed a light "tra-la-la" as much as this song; it would be the soft tiara upon the lovely forest-princess head that is this lovely tune. It asks you out, and you have no reason not to go. You don't even need a coat.

[Buy Hell Train tomorrow!]

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The Squid and the Whale - a perfect movie. not in a long time have I been so simultaneously aware and unaware of a script. marvelous.

Casiotone For The Painfully Alone - "Young Shields"

You are not safe from Casiotone. You both live in glass houses, we all do, and he is tired, sick, and he has many many rocks. It's like having the bomb, nobody's supposed to use it, but he doesn't care anymore; we're all going down (aside: this genre's sometimes called button-pushing). And what makes it even more distressing, unnerving, is that the highly-screamable lyrics (actually, a screamy cover might be nice, get on it, Bright Eyes) are left like an answering machine message, sedate and almost laboured (like coming down). Deeply angry, but a beat like a subway car.

[from Casiotone's livejournal: "YOUNG SHIELDS will not be available in shops or through mail order until the end of the year, so coming to a show & buying a copy off of the merch table is the only way you'll be able to get one of these for a while."]

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The McCoys - "Come On, Let's Go"

Karin played me "Hang On, Sloopy" the other night, over the phone, which is a lot like am radio, so it didn't differ much from my memory of the song. But in defining any band as a "one-hit wonder" it's an unfortunate cinching of the band's entire oeuvre into "not as good". I'll grant that this song is not a *wonder*, but it is a delight, and that's not too bad. I mean, it can't be that far from a wonder, it's almost the same song (they both approach "Twist and Shout" as asymptotes to an axis). So, if "one-hit wonder" actually means "the same great song many times in slightly different forms", sign me up.

[Buy]

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Faux Pas - "Cup of Wonder"

Also, this song needs lyrics more than I need to eat like a regular person (and I need that a lot). So, take the song, record some lyrics, send it to me. It's not a contest, but it is a hard task. suggestions: use a megaphone, or a lot of sliding notes, or maybe even speak-singing or rap or something.

[buy]

I was struck by something Sean wrote about other blogs. He said that there's so many going now, that there's no pressure. We don't have to write about anything we don't want to. And I guess I knew that already, but reading it like that was different somehow. So I'm posting Calvin Johnson (posted by Tim Moore on Friday) and Magnetic Fields (over-posted to death). Also, I feel pretty strung-out on painkillers, so forgive.

Calvin Johnson - "Rabbit Blood"

I've been watching a lot of zombie movies recently, and am currently drinking V8, and have an interest in early Nicolas Cage, so drinking blood actually seems pretty cool to me. And if this were the first song at my party, things would get straight out o' hand. I would not be like Calvin Johnson: sturdy as a rock, as if called in to handle vocals, whose through-line style makes the subtlest variations ("rabbit blow-ud") all the more important, pertinent. I would not be like that.

[Buy]

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Magnetic Fields - "It's Only Time"

I only got this album a few days ago, and heard this song on the bus, and I literally started crying. In front of strangers. I couldn't believe it. Especially since this is the CHEESIEST FUCKING SONG I'VE EVER HEARD. But something was so true about it, so honest and right. It's like having vaseline over your eyes, but sometimes, and Merrit knows this better than you or I, it's time. I wondered about the people who've used this as their wedding song. If they were still together.

[Buy]

Icy Demons - "Icy Demons"

The opening of this song sounds like what people say free jazz sounds like. Pretty affected, pretty wobbly, pretty bad. But then it kicks in to shoulder-dropping, hunched-down percussion that scoots and sneaks, and it's suddenly interesting. I like jazz* that makes me see pictures, makes me feel rain, makes warm breath cool. Then the vocals come, and while I'm able to forgive them, I'd rather they hadn't taken the liberty. Imagine that horn burst without the tin-roof singing overtop.

[site] *I use that word because I don't know what else to use

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Murder Beach - "The Pincher"

Do that dance where the top of your head wiggles back and forth and your hands stack one on top of the other in a continuous stack, like you're filling "hand slots" or something. You know the one I'm talking about? Do it. You'll feel better.

[Buy]

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The Explanation Station: sorry for no post Tuesday, it's partly my fault. And there's going to be more chaos this week: a guest post on Friday! Woah. But it's a terribly exciting one, so get ready. The reason for all this: I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow, and so I needed to post when I was coherent, and saved the guest for when I will be out like a light. Three full colons in this paragraph; four is the record.

Red Pony Clock - "Nothing's Worse Than Being Uncool"

Matthew from Asaurus records connected me with this (and other) marvelous band(s) last week. If we were in 3rd grade, he would be my "new best friend"; instead, he is simply my best new friend. Red Pony Clock's Tunes From Terrace Towers is the best bedroom album I've heard since Bishop Allen, it has that start-to-finish, can't-wait-to-listen-to-it-again quality that you don't get very often. Part Diskettes and Parka 3, part Cake as a mariachi band, and part psychedelic family-fun-times music (thanks to M-tones for that one), with lyrics delivered like Pavement (well, one of the vocalists, they have two), but written like a swearing, clever, Velvet Underground. Whew. I don't usually mention other bands when I review songs, I guess that's been building up for a while. As for this song, it's a peach with no pit. Let's just revel in the great and true words, and bursts where the musical instruments introduce themselves, run waving across the stage. This song overstays its welcome a bit, which just makes it all the bulkier, awkward, uncool, perfect.

Red Pony Clock - "Sir Glorious In Your Insignificance"

The album is a heterogeneous mixture of the mariachi-infused clever bits (represented above) and the psychedelia-chorus-of-rainbowland-creatures parts (represented here). Let it take you to a place where normal people are born as twins, the streets are made of tiles that light up when you walk on them, and everything is five minutes from everything else*. Listen as the flute comes up like a bird beginning to fly just in time before hitting the ground. She had it all the time.

Also, there are like 4 other great songs on this album, but I thought better than to post them all.

[they have a geocities website!]

*either a pretty mediocre Ray Bradbury novel or a kick-ass episode of Sliders