Archives : all posts by Dan

The Archivist - "Signs & Symbols"

For pretending that these warm fall days are something they're not, for wasting the busiest times of the days, for regulating your intake of anything more than megaphony vocals and altocumulus guitar, this song is perfect. And it fades, if you'll forgive, like all things. [MySpace]

Björn Benny Agnetha & Frida (ABBA) - "Ring Ring"

Biking while listening to music is dangerous. I was listening to this the other night, and a car pulled slowly up beside me as we headed to a red light. This girl in the front seat was looking at me, so I gave a nod, and this was a terrible idea. I could see everyone in the car getting very agitated, the driver trying to see me, the rest pointing and yelling. This must have been some thug's best girl. I ran the red, and they followed me through. I turned the wrong way up a one-way, and still they followed. Then I turned down an alley, and they got out and chased me. It was a dead end. I was left facing 4 of them. I got my giant chain lock out of my back basket and spun it around my head. As they drew closer, their blond hair and perfect complexion looking mean and heaving, I realised: they were Swedes. They disarmed me almost immediately and I was beaten savagely, my bike helmet being used to harm me instead of protect me. My earphones managed to stay in the whole time, though, so this was all I could hear. [Buy]

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Also: these are the Facebook Events assigned to the Gramophone Bleating Heart Shows, so rsvp if you're going to go.

Wednesday Oct. 3 - Julie Doiron, Christine Fellows, Ola Podrida & Lily Frost
Friday Oct. 5 - Grizzly Bear, Plants and Animals, Yeasayer
Sunday Oct. 7 - Clues, Elfin Saddle, Casey Dienel, Horse Feathers

Blackball False, Truth! - "Knives Chau Luvs LCD"

The first thing you must know about me is that I was passed over for a position as General in the army of the self-obsessed. Between the ages of 12 and 20 I didn't have a portable music player, but that didn't stop me from pretending my life was a movie. Characters coming and going, my decisions about them based on what they "deserved" as if they had to have cohesive storylines too. Arguably my fate was decided early on, destined to walk backwards through most of the doors in my life, figuring out what was already over, until with only one choice left to make I pretended I had no choice at all.

"If I may be so bold as to present an imperative," said Nathan Lane, the actor, in hawaiian-print boxers and a ripped Dr. Hook shirt, standing on his hotel bed, bouncing slightly on the springs, in bare feet, "Try hard. It's the most honest thing you can do."

So I immediately jumped off the hotel balcony, and ran to a very specific place and said "I love you" with a renewed vigor, and set to doing the dishes with a new sense of the value of thankless work.

Like a helicopter shot of your kitchen counter, this song makes it so amazing to have little tiny problems.

Note: and I just checked The Hype Machine, and we're the ONLY blog to feature BF,T! ever (except for The Poor Ditching Boy). That stops today. [Site]

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Also: I was interviewed for Blog Fresh Radio about a post from back in August and the episode is online this week. I sound sooo dumb at first, but wait for it, they make me sound better as it goes on. Shout-outs to Matty P, who I would walk across a Hate Pit for.

Small Sins - "What Your Baby's Been Doing"

This song ought to be the theme for an old mystery show. Bodies falling out of closets, over bridges, into laps. Candles being blown out, mysterious sunglasses rounding a corner, and shocked old housemaids. Horses leaping in fright, a fat man counting a pile of cash, and thugs, jugs, and drugs. All sandwiched around the hero, a meek librarian, a mouse of a man, with little glasses and a sweater vest. He's no socialite, no charmer, no hero, but he knows justice, and he's got an eye for clues. So all the old creepy dukes, all the jealous ex-lovers, the disgruntled pool boys, the chain-smoking widows, the egyptian industrialists, and Texas oilmen better watch out, 'cause Francis Milk is right behind you, ready to show you what's right under your nose: the truth. It's playing at 2AM and you and the cat are watching it, both of you under a blanket, and both of you happy as clams.

[Pre-order]

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My review of The 11th Hour is up on The Movie Binge.

Times New Viking - "Devo & Wire"

Dear Dad,

College is fun. You were right, moving away was a good idea. I'm making lots of friends here, and I really like my teachers. Cooking for myself is hard, I either seem to buy not enough food or too much, but I'm sure that balance will come with time. I like having to walk down the street to do my laundry, it's fresh air. Though I'm sure my opinion will change when the snow comes. I joined a group at school and we're really messing stuff up, you know? Fightin' it. It feels good. I feel sometimes like a glowing stick of red hot metal.

- Son

ps. Dad, they broke me.

Pavement - "Frontwards"

Dear Son,

Cute. I'm glad you're having a good time. I remember what college was like for me. No matter what you think now, you still have lots to learn, you always do. I still do. Your voice is timid now, though vital, but in time will gain clarity and focus. Your opinion of yourself will change as many times as the sun rises. And your work will pass through you, around you, like breathing in pollen, or eating garlic. I know I sound sentimental now, but your letter found me nostalgic. I remember the cool grey streets of girls' minds, separated into blocks to walk on. Walk on. Goodness, listen to me.

- Dad

[Buy Times New Viking] [Buy Pavement]

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My article on Telefauna is up at Ajisignal.com. Features an mp3 ne'er been posted by me, and words to die for.

Celebration - "Evergreen"

Let me get a ginger ale first, then I can write this. Yes. Celebration set the pace for this triptych with the first lesson that all songs called "Evergreen" must be the artist's attempt at putting to music the essence of the title. That why there's chimes, that's why the vocals are soft like live warm fur (fir). The beat is like sustained movement, like one of those spinning ballerinas, arms outstretched, but head looking up, as if to snow or night clouds. I still don't associate this voice with a woman. It still sounds like an animal, or like if a cd player could physically come alive and sing, like that. This song is truly like tall swaying trees, like tall swaying tubes of glitter lipstick, writing out the stars with their soft tops rubbing the ceiling of the world. [Buy]

Fiery Furnaces - "Evergreen"

A drug-addicted tree drives drunk and cries. Having found nothing for her in the forest, she wanders the earth, making money here and there, selling honey, working odd jobs, basking in the seasons. Always slightly out of place but always keeping it together with the help of her drug, "helps me stay sharp, and keen, ever green." I always think of an emerald felt fuzziness when I hear this song, you can touch it just as much as you can see it, hear it. [Buy]

Barbara Streisand - "Evergreen"

If I awoke in a pancake commercial, if I were raised on soft focus and eye lights, if my clothes were painted on for easy's sake, and if gliding were the same as walking, I might begin to understand the power of this song. Because right now I do not understand it. It's emotional language feels ancient and outdated, a crumbling smile, but it's possibly highly advanced, I have no way of knowing. Instead I'll let it stand beside me, hold my hand, pet my hair, as I stare, wary and wide-eyed, out at you. [Buy]

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My friend Dan Popa has made a truly gorgeous little music video, and one that is purely made for the internet and is best experienced there, it wouldn't work anywhere else. Please go watch.

No Little Kindness - "Cast Off Your Troubles"

No Little Kindness bring a slow build, they build a song the way a boat builds a wake. A beautiful spreading path of their trajectory, at once a mess and a swirling cloud of colours, choirs, comas. That thud-thud-thud I like to imagine is a diving board, rattling from someone jumping off. One every second.

No Little Kindness - "Shall Not Be Moved"

And here, a better song for walking in a group down a dirt road at midday I have not heard. The tambourine kicks up a dust that is blown quickly away by the wind of the voices, and they both soon snowball into a storm. The heat of the sun like a lead blanket, and the white white white church to the side, it's just the statement "shall not be moved" with no subject that I like. It starts with "I shall not be moved", but by the end it's just the predicate shouted with so much energy the meaning is unnecessary.

[MySpace]

Marnie Stern - "Put All Your Eggs In One Basket And Then Watch That Basket!!!"

This is what I've been waiting for. This has been out since February and it only passed into my vision, like a meteor brings its party slowly by, just last week thanks to Matthew at Fluxblog. He describes it as "calming" and I really agree. This is the kind of fall coat you put on when you know the weather's not sweating anymore. It's a new phase, a different city, a new leaf. It's forgetting and remembering at once, the way light is a particle and a wave, depending on how you look at it. It's sad that the track only goes forward, but it's great that it goes at all. You realise that, cut, you make two.

Marnie Stern - "Vibrational Match"

This starts like boiling a pot of water by using lightning, and then quickly turns into a mighty steed, sturdy and galloping, ridden by Marnie Stern, hair like flames. Like a fuckin' UFO horse galloping on a cloud of metal heads, jumping dumpsters and drum kits. Such a wind, it's like singing inside the wind. Or like what the wind would sound like if it had a band, and a 'tude. This ain't your daddy's grass-swayin', do-nudgin', milquetoast wind. This a gust, the kind that gets sidewalk dirt in your eye and doesn't say sorry.

[Buy]

(art by Christina Kolaiti)