Archives : all posts by Dan

Absentee - "Shared"
Modest Mouse - "Make Everyone Happy / Mechanical Birds"

The Absentee track I got in the mail today, and the Modest Mouse is the last track on their first album. These are the only two songs I have listened to today, and I had a very distinct feeling listening to both. I think there are some among you who would relate with me when I say that I would like to survive my own suicide. Which is distinct, mind, from surviving a suicide attempt. It's a fictional, adolescent kind of fantasy, that allows one to both muster the courage involved and to be free of the consequences. Or rather, consequence in the singular. You can see inklings of this idea in many things: video games, movies, drinking, drugs, and you can easily squirrel it into the simpler notion of re-inventing yourself, but I prefer the grandeur, self-pity, and histrionics of my idea. Every time I hear those mechanical birds, I just want to throw myself on them, their vast metal jaws hungry and screaming.

[Absentee's Victory Shorts available only in the UK in Sept.]
[buy Long Drive from Up Records]

Wale - "W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E."

Out my window, I can always hear my neighbour talking on the phone. He must have some insane cellphone plan, because he's never not talking, I swear, he must have it set up with Fido that he pays them when he's not on the phone. But I was leaving one day, I had to meet my Spanish tutor, and he was out on his balcony (he often is) and he waved me over. He wanted me to see his new TV, he said he just got it and some sweet satellite and he wanted to show it off. He didn't hang up the phone the whole time. I could never tell if he was talking to me or not. He'd be like "check it out!", and then a long silence, he'd be looking at me, so I'd give a shot, "it's sweet!" He was talking to me that time. But he was in the kitchen (I was standing in my shoes on the carpet with my backpack on, not knowing how long I should stay, having to go anyway) and the video for D.A.N.C.E. came on. He blew out of the kitchen, spilling his Bananorange juice, and blew into this insane freestyle. It was like watching Lance Armstrong on an exercycle, it was like all his talking was just training and this was the real shit. I blew me away, completely.

Wale - "Daytona Squared (prod. by Judah)"

Here Wale sounds like he's under the gun. Like he's always got more rhymes than he can get out in time. Like someone is playing that little organ line over and over, knowing that that's his button, that Wale has to keep going as long as he keeps playing. He tries to say good-bye a bunch of times, but that organ keeps saying "no no no, you're gonna keep this up. you're gonna keep rhymin'."

[Get Wale's mixtape "100 Miles and Running" for free]
[thanks to CHUO's Transmissions After Zero for this]

Run on Sentence - "The Afterlife Pt. 1"

Hello Pudgy Present, Hello Rink-a-Dink, Hello College Class, Hello Junior Seinfeld, Hello Pack-n-Skratch, Hello The Gundown, Hello Bellyfish, Hello Sparks Fly, Hello Gundam Schwing, Hello Tetris, Hello Haunchback Gus, Hello Letterman Pal, Hello Prince Buttermaid's Dell, Hello Vacationation, Hello LAR-LAR, Hello Trembling TV, Hello Ronnie Wood Panels, Hello Traveling Toy, Hello The Rector's Quick Visit, Hello Grand Piano, Hello Stewbird, Hello Michigan's Best Canal, Hello Holiday Gaze, Hello Lump, Hello Jerman Jury, Hello El Macho Del Sol, Hello Gord. Yes, Gord is the best one. We'll call the cat Gord.

-------
I could do so many things tonight. I could think about a name for the cat, I could get drunk, I could rent a movie, I could sit, I could walk inside or go for a walk outside, I could read, the paper, another time, I could do the dishes. Maybe not so many things.
-------
There's been a recent spike in questions. Like, questions raised, questions posed, and questions unanswered. Apparently people are asking more and more questions, either to themselves or to each other. Children, wives, soldiers, everyone is asking questions these days! Do your part; refrain from posing rhetorical questions. Or if you do, answer them, even if you feel it's stating the obvious. "What does a guy have to do to get a drink around here?" "Ask for one. Pay for one. Get one." "Does that guy ever sleep?" "Yes, he does." "Do you have enough pasta, there?" "I have more than enough."
- published in 1998 and still relevant today

[again, from the free HUSH compilation]

--

tonight is the grand opening of the Artsy Fartsy Talent Show, a new regular show at Theatre Ste. Catherine in Montreal, hosted and curated by the very talented Aubrey Tennant. Come, I'll be doing something stupid.

Ford & Fitzroy - "Buzzard Country"

If I gave you a list of my maladies and a list of my best qualities, they'd look mighty similar. A slight limp, one leg longer than the other, for extra reach. A short stocky build, lower center of gravity, great in a strong wind. A rabid smoking habit, I can make a room look "lived-in" in 40 minutes. Hell of a smile, yellow ear to ear. No feeling in my hands, hasn't been for 8 months, now a Slaps champion. Blind in one eye; two dimensions are all I need. Tons and tons of scathing rumours about me, just holding secret my real personality, saving it for someone really willing to work.

A heavily-populated genre, with many subtle, often-missed emotional targets, Ford & Fitzroy make teenager music. And they make it extremely well.
[buy]

The Bodies Obtained - "Hear & Believe"

This sounds like an overture for some kind of future king. Like a mixture between professional wrestler and monarch. Pyrotechnics, make-up, lycra costume, big pointy shoulder pads and plastic crown, but very real rule. A sizable portion of taxes go into the garish matches between him and various subjects. Attendance is mandatory, like jury duty, if such a thing existed in this kingdom. He goes by the name Night Nero, and he likes to think of himself as a "bad guy". Eating animal organs on stage, this kind of thing. He uses the wrestling matches to allegorize current goings-on politically inside the kingdom and out. The problem is, he often spends more time working on the performance than on the actual politics, so he'll often have to overuse his army (who are dressed in simpler, drone-like versions of his costume, without crowns of course, and are called "the NeoFights") to clean up situations that could have been negotiated had he not been practicing his choke slam. But when you hear this music, you better shut up and watch the show.

[this isn't available until November, but 2 other tracks via RCRD LBL]

--

Also, Fiery Furnaces Survey:

I'm working on an article right now and I need your help. I'm putting together a semi-fictional market research document for a magazine, and I need to do some actual polling, so I've prepared a survey that I would like to give to you readers. It'd take about 10 minutes of your time, and it would involve listening to a song I would send you. If you want to help me out, just send me an email with "FIERY FURNACES SURVEY" as the subject line. You don't have to like the band to participate. I need like 100 people for this so don't be shy. Thank you!

[source]

The Walkmen - "On the Water"

On the water, written in invisible lines, invisible for now, are secret water countries. Ocean, river, and nation lakes that are far older than our mere land states. Immense wars, vast campaigns of espionage and intrigue, gruesome battles, even interminable grudges and millennial stalemates. The countries are not stratified along lines of species, that's a classic human mistake, most ocean states (like Br'fellia, Nochvaleee Kingdom, and The Huv) will have many whales in their fleet, but also hundreds of thousands of jellyfish, a few dozen sting rays, and carp carp carp. We're talking about tens of thousands of years of rivalry, trading, invasion, occupation, devastation, deliberation, slavery, loss, love, hope. A young couple, dolphin lovers, separated like a million others, her to fight and him to light the porch light every night. But soon, the war will come home to him, come crashing and squeezing in from the Roof, rushing up from the Bottom, and he'll either escape or he won't. It's really none of your concern; it never was. [Pre-order]

Phil and the Osophers - "High Art"

Biggest hurdle to me even posting this at all: the band name.
Biggest reason it jumped that hurdle: "for braggin' rights, awoo-oo."
[site]

[source]

Casey Dienel - "Asleep at the Wheel"

I have a lifetime achievement award from the life I spent in the world that lives in the foam on the edge of my beer glass. The ground was a white, hilly landscape, but mostly it was similar to this world, though it had the distinct characteristic of elapsing its entire history in the time it took for me to sip it into oblivion. I worked for a string of non-profits, jumped into them right after college, and lived with my girlfriend in the attic of a church that was out of the way but still bikeable. I started an online publication that featured underprivileged writers and contributors voicing their creativity and opinions in a forum that was viewed by millions. I helped raise a couple of near-extinct variety of bluebird, which was just a favour for a friend, but turned into national news. I had two heavenly blessings, and they grew up right under my nose into two of the greatest people I've met in my life. When the kids were growing up, there was always a cat or two in the house, but after they left, I never felt the need. Never married, took up guitar at 45, and started a chain of franchises; youth drop-in centers where the kids make and sell cookies and pizza. I got the award from the community when I turned 66, on my birthday actually, and I promised them all I'd repay them for the honour. So I left a stipulation in my will that my leftover earnings be divided up equally among the current population of the city. Everybody got just over a dollar when I died.
[From the DECA compilation from HUSH records. it's FREE]

Abe Vigoda - "Animal Ghosts"

I was in a grocery store once with Sean, we were getting juice or something, and there was meat being delivered. They were wheeling in the carcasses in spare carts. But they came in all at once and swarmed around us and suddenly stopped. In the span of a minute I went from standing in a regular grocery store, to being surrounded by 40 shaved calves stacked in shopping carts with their legs tied and their feet sawed off. I realised quickly this is how certain people view any meat section, that this WAS a regular grocery store for some people, a complete horror show, and all I could think was: "animal ghosts". I love my life.

[Buy Skeleton]