Archives : all posts by Sean

Edith Frost - "What's The Use". "I gotta be a man / about it," Edith sings. She's not very happy about this. And while the song canters along, plum notes and a plum melody, like a plum all round, a plum a horse might eat, well Edith sings drily. She's so unamused that the only response is a joke. She's got a country blues but ain't gonna waste time thinking about it. No - here's the problem: You. Me. We.*

* Yes, that is a title of a movie. But it's also the name of the look Edith will give you if you try to do that again. Or the look she will give her horse, the one with the plum, when she's standing at the edge of town and a streetcar screetches past and she decides that She Must Go.

[pre-order, read edith's weblog, and/or grab more mp3s]

The Baptist Generals - "Diminished". I am tired and my head aches. Maybe it's a toothache, maybe it's dehydration. Maybe it's heartburn, or heartache, and I'm just confused. Maybe I grind my teeth when I sleep. Maybe I'm allergic to Martha Wainwright, even if I was just at the show to review it. I don't know. But in late 2005, on the nights when things are wrong, on the mornings when things are wrong, at dawn or dusk or the early afternoon, "Diminished" is the best song in the universe. I say this with only the tiniest flicker of exaggeration. I think the best thing about growing older is that you discover old songs and then realise the world is wider than you thought, that there was a song somewhere living in parallel with you.

While I sat waiting for the metro last winter, eyes closed, listening to Final Fantasy's "Please Please Please" because it was the best I could find, this song was weaving through cornfields on its way to me. On that afternoon six years ago when the sky was purple-pink and I yelled, just yelled at someone on the bus, this song hadn't been recorded yet - but in someone's mind's eye, in their sad-sack heart, it was pacing through an empty green village, looking at the old gravestones, the closed grocer's shop. It was there for me, had I but known it.

Of all the bands who I fell in love with for the first time this year, the Baptist Generals are the only ones who didn't release anything in 2005. Or in 2004. No Silver No Gold is from the heady days of 2003. (Popsheep introduced them to me in May.) You might hear Okkervil River or Neil Young, Herman Dune or Will Oldham. Or maybe a little Daniel Johnston. Or none of the above. The optimists can listen to "Going Back Song", but tonight I'm an acheing pessimist who wants to listen to "Diminished": to the bass-drum thump and the singer's humble words, to the organ's heartbreaking sigh, and yeah, to the bass. The upright bass that's got its heart broken and picked itself up, that's got its heart broken and picked itself up, that's got its heart broken and picked itself up and is now walking hand-in-hand with its pals, the ones who are still picking themselves up, because the upright bass is the kindest friend in the world.

[buy]

Kathryn has promised me that they are working on an album - but can I believe her?!

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Apparently Jordan's computer has died. We are all hoping that this will prove to be a mistake and not a calamity, but it may be a calamity. Pour out a drink for him, this evening.

When I was in Riga, Latvia, we went to a jazz bar called Liize. It was mostly empty, there in the basement, and we sat at a booth near the back while a quartet jammed on stage. A woman with bird's hair sang in awkward English, nodding with the cool-and-careful piano player, bass and drums.

It was an open jam, at least officially, but no one joined them for a long time. Finally a barrel-chested man went up and played "Summertime" on trumpet. Then into the room sneaked a pair of men in black suits. One was silent and big - we imagined him as a bodyguard. The other had a pony-tail, a greasy little goatee, a rat's face. We nicknamed him Ratso. He said stuff in Latvian. We made up stories, him as the psychopathic son of the big russian mob boss, the annoying guy that no one dares mess with.

Ratso asked to play the piano and the piano-player made way. Boy did Ratso have a good time. Ratso played boogie-woogie with gusto, he hammed up crescendos, he insisted that we cheer along. As the singer sang he punctuated her lyrics with innuendo-filled piano trills. He threw back his head and laughed. Ratso led the show for well over an hour. Whatta guy.

Later, Ratso left the stage and went to the back of the room, the next table over from us. He chatted with a handsome blonde man who was sitting with two women in slinky numbers. I imagined the blonde man as some TV actor or sports star. He and Ratso laughed and caroused. The band played.

Toward the very end of the evening a man in a sweater got up. He had been sitting there the whole time. He was small, with short brown hair. Late 40s. He didn't talk much. He murmured something to the singer, who directed him to the piano. Everyone else left the stage.

The little Latvian man played "My Funny Valentine". The song by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, made famous by Chet Baker. Chet Baker died as he was climbing from one balcony to another at an Amsterdam hotel, looking for money to buy heroin. Six months ago I stood outside that hotel, and I thought about this. The view is of boats.

A basement in Latvia, a little man in a sweater playing the piano, playing so well that I think I stopped breathing. The man played with practice. He bent towards the keys as he played them and then withdrew, listening, sometimes wincing (but not looking at us). I couldn't tell if he was wounded by the sound or soothed by it. He was very careful, like someone could get hurt. He played the melody but he also played more, playing around the tune, playing it with gaps, filling the gaps with long silences and wrong (right) notes. I wrote in my journal, - I do not usually keep a journal (I have a blog, see,) but I kept one then, - I wrote that he was "trying to find the vocabulary for heartache". It was very sad. Very, very sad. The man didn't look at us as he played. He looked at the keys, as if he was trying to read them.

When he was done the man in the sweater gave a little bow and then sat down along at his table to listen.

Almost a year has passed since that night, but I still think of it. The music was so good. The moment was also good - I was with a good friend, we were somewhere that had a ceremonial guard and a Liberty Monument, we had eaten Indian food and were drinking good beer. We had laughed at Ratso, the latvian koopa. That morning, Julian's camera had been stolen at the market. But we were not thinking about that: we were leaving those feelings in the part of our minds concerned with phone-cards and bus tickets and blisters. Well, I was. Maybe as I sat there listening, Julian was seeing that woman with tiny, quick hands.

I remember how dark it was out the windows. I remember that I didn't recognise any of the photographs on the wall, and that I wondered whether my jazz knowledge was that bad or if they were Latvian jazz stars. And I remember the humility with which the little Latvian man played, the way he borrowed a piano, and played, and the way my chest ached, and then the way he thanked us for humouring him. And the way he sat down.

Today I guess I'm still looking for a rendition of "My Funny Valentine" like that one. So I announced a contest - "Send me your valentines!" - I said. I received twenty-nine different renditions, many of them several times. Lots of them are very good. Some are truly excellent. A heartfelt thank-you to everyone who contributed: you brought much light to my eyes. The winner is a version that (like most of the others) I had not heard before this week - so thank you Matt C, thank you David F.

But I'm a little sad, too, because I still think of the man in the sweater.

I'll have to keep looking.

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Gerry Mulligan Quartet ft. Chet Baker - "My Funny Valentine". This is a studio recording from 1952. Chet sounds like he does. He plays trumpet with complete clarity, black birds on a wire. He's at once celebrating, mourning, beckoning. He dips and wheels. He bows. Who is sighing "ohhhhh ohhhhh ohhhhh" in the background? And Gerry: oh. The sax is a steadier, older take on Chet's feelings, but it moves no less incisively. When they come together, it is a kiss: a convoluted a kiss. (The convolutions are two peoples' lives and all their experiences, the winding pathways of fate and will, the happy accidents and great tragedies, and whatever brings them together, tonight, at this moment.) This is much too short, and that is its greatest flaw.

Update 8:54 am EST - I got confused at 2am and got URLs/file-names wrong. (The two Chet Baker/Gerry Mulligan files got mixed up on the upload.) Thanks to Matt for sorting me out - the studio version above should clock in at just under 3 minutes whereas the live version below if 8 min or so, if I recall.

Read my mostly stream-of-consciousness thoughts on the other submissions (as well as a couple more mp3s) after the jump.

[buy]

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Department of Eagles - "Noam Chomsky Spring Break 2002". Imagine DJ Shadow's gone undercover. His cover? An enormous felt monster costume. He's fifteen feet high, he's purple, and he's roaming the streets. He's got a boombox on his shoulder and it is booming: it's booming the Grizzly Bear album. And just as Shadow rounds a corner, - with nightblack monster beats, snips of memory and crow-croaks, opera-song coming wafting down a fire-escape, - he meets a gang of dancers, real dancers. They're wearing blue and they weave around him, synchronised, stepping only when the piano steps, lifting their hands on the high-hats, and when the monster squints from fifteen-feet above street-level they look like a cloud, like a swirling cloud, a cloud that's coming together and is going to swerve toward midtown. The monster begins to run.

Department of Eagles play a great, thick music - long strips of jazz with indie rock stripes, beats and whimsy. If we play the sounds-like game it gets complicated: like Broken Social Scene on a retreat with The Dirty Three, Four Tet after an all-night Pet Sounds bender. "Forty Dollar Rug" could be by Ween, or The Unicorns, or something. ("Forty dollar rug! Twenty dollar lamp! Playstation 2! Tony Hawk 4!") "Sailing By Night" could be by Elbow. And "Ghost in Summer Clothes" has all the dusty folkness that Vetiver craves but just can't hack. Half of this band is indeed in Grizzly Bear. The other half isn't. The Whitey On The Moon UK LP is very good and you can listen to five more songs (including "Ghost" and "Sailing") here.

[buy!]

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This video of singing-and-dancing to the Backstreet Boys in a college dorm is exceptional. The things about it that I love: 1) The song (who knew that "I Want it That Way" was good!?); 2) the cast. on his arm.; 3) the roommate who continues playing Counter Strike regardless of what is going on in front of him; 4) the feeling that the guy on the left loves this so much - loves it more than everything else he has ever done, everything else he dreams of, that this is the greatest joy he will ever experience, and that he knows it. [via sillytech]

Tuwa ruminates on musicblogs and PR agents. I'm happy to help out musicians who put out music I like, but first and foremost I need to like it. Yes. One of the things that is great about there being so many more musicblogs these days is that I'm not even tempted to write about lame albums (like recent Tortoise/Bonnie Prince Billy, Jana Hunter/Devendra Banhart, My Morning Jacket, Iron & Wine/Calexico, Vashti Bunyan, Rogue Wave, and onandon), no matter the PR push, my readership's interest, or even how friendly I might feel towards the bands; there's other people who can sort you out, so no one's gonna miss it.

RIP Splendid E-zine. They were an astonishing music zine with a beautiful (and absurd) philosophy, and they will be missed. I wish them all the best.

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And like I said before, click on MORE for my take on the other twenty-eight versions of "My Bloody Valentine" that were submitted for the contest. You can download a couple of them, too.

First -- the "My Funny Valentine" contest. Thank you all for your submissions - wow and holymoly. Strictly speaking, there are two winners, as the winning entry was submitted by two different people. Matt Christie and Dave Federman, I salute you! In order to settle the stale-mate, the prize will go to Matt C - who was (by a large margin) the first to submit the song. Matt, please email me at sean@saidthegramophone.com so we can arrange matters. David, I salute you again.

I will talk about the winning rendition on Thursday, as well as the other submissions. Sorry to make this such a prolonged affair, but so it goes! :)

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Happy Halloween. I don't have any good halloween music.

But you should support UNICEF and rock out to the remixes by buying the Do They Know It's Halloween single/EP. Now with purchasing info for canadians/europeans/etc!

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Nina Nastasia - "Bird of Cuzco". This song was written for John Peel, the late BBC Radio DJ. It is a modest song. Nastasia sings it with her usual tilted voice, sings lyrics that move like silhouettes. A shadow-play; shadow-forms that glimmer into colour, a white backdrop that blooms into a sunrise. Nina Nastasia asks questions, asks for help. She supplicates, quietly; she takes the answers where she can. She plays her guitar and she listens for the piano notes. She squints in the night and watches a bird.

I spent most of my life as a Canadian. I continue to live it as a Canadian, really, although I live in Edinburgh. But this is just a long way of saying: I didn't know John Peel. I didn't listen to the BBC over the net, or download almost any of his Sessions. I didn't - and don't - know him. But I need to say that as someone who dwells here now, who rubs shoulders with musos and critics and musicians, John Peel is perhaps the figure around which there is the most warmth. Not respect exactly; not reverence - but warmth. An affection that borders on love. People talk of him like a beloved friend. They stick up for his memory. They get into fights when John Peel Day seems to have been usurped. They talk about the way he taught them to love music - not just to appreciate the weird, to embrace the unexpected, but also to take full real pleasure in everything that gives you pleasure. The way he loved the songs he loved, the way he loved to love them, the way he made loving a piece of music a thing of triumph, of joy, of central human importance. The way that even if you didn't share his taste, you envied it - because it seemed so fierce.

I wish I knew John Peel. RIP.

(thanks jef jed)

[read about Nina and John at Spoilt Victorian Child]

[buy John Peel: A Tribute at amazon.co.uk]

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Stars - "Ageless Beauty (Most Serene Republic remix)". It's only a week and a half since we wrote about Most Serene Republic, but here they are again because they've lit all the lights, the hundred-candle chandeliers, and they've made me very happy indeed. On Set Yourself on Fire, Stars make "Ageless Beauty" a bionic pop-song, a press of synths that seems thicker and stronger than any life I've ever lived, and I think I've only lived one. Imagine my glee when I hear what Most Serene Republic have done with the tune: they stripped the synths away, stowed them in the closets, then wheeled out the stringy guitars and threadbare pianos. They made Amy Millan stand right there in the middle of the ballroom as the candles were getting lit, they asked her to sing just the same, but now it's not a superhero's song. Now it's a song for the scale of my life, for all the goofs and the joys, for the way beauty sneaks up out of dusty corners, the way it manifests itself as glints in peoples' eyes. The song has got today's loveliness and not some shiny tomorrow's: it's got friendship and revelry and good craic. It's got a voice sweet as honey cake and some friends who will gobble it up.

[hear the original for free]

[buy the "ageless beauty" single us/uk]

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Toronto Life has a marvellous interview with Dave Newfeld, Broken Social Scene producer. Dave is an enormously friendly character, bubbling-over with ideas and enthusiasms, passionate without being bossy. The interview's special because Dave is so honest, so forthright. A great read.

"It drives those guys nuts when we make an album; we’re not going to make any more albums like this one anymore."

Why?

"Because I spend so much time on my own that they feel I’ve taken a chunk of their soul and said, "Here, let me fucking groom it while you’re not looking," and then they come back and I go, "Look at your soul, I’ve put platform shoes on it, what do you think? Looks nice and tall now." Aagh! (laughs) Whereas their attitude is now: you’ve worked on this one, finish it this way, but on the next one we want you in not as producer, but we want you in as a band member. We want you to come in and play—I’ll play on this one, too—we want you to have input; it’ll be like a group thing. You’re not going to take this and fucking monkey around with it, and then let us hear it..."

A little over a week ago, Drag City released a 7" called Mr Jews: In search of Silver Palace. It was ostensibly a toe-dip into the long-rumoured collaboration between David Berman (Silver Jews) and Will Oldham (Palace). 500 copies were pressed, and I suspect all 500 have been snapped up. Fret not, however - you can hear this very strange thing here (click on "media"), and see the MAD Magazine-like cover art here. For those who don't mind having the surprise of the album spoiled, click through to this post's comments and I'll lay it out.

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update: I nearly forgot.... Some of you may know of November as National Novel Writing Month, but it is also NaSoAlMo: National Solo Album Month. Write and record an album in November - go on, do it! Other people are!

The "My Funny Valentine" contest is over. Thank you all for your submissions - the winner will probably be announced next Monday.

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Blanket - "All Love is Dead". Sit down, sit down. Don't go anywhere. Sit. There's a candle on the table and Lauren (we will call her Lauren) is in the kitchen, washing dishes. She speaks to you over her shoulder. She's wearing her short skirt, the one you like, but her hair's falling across her face in an ugly way. Her eyes look hard. You're sitting there as she speaks but you're not listening for the first long time - you're listening to her voice, the sweet and mumbly flow, the voice you love to hear close-up, right in your ear, marble-mouthed, - but you're not listening to the words. And then you begin to hear, over the tapwater shhh, over the scrub scrub of her rubber gloves, over the sighs of the backing vocals in the corner -- you begin to hear what she's saying and you realise she is telling you off. You deserve it. It's a rage that sounds for a moment like a whine, then sad sad sad, then like someone deep in love. And then like all three and neither. Because she's gone cool again, sharp and collected, back straight, and the only soft thing over there, at the other end of the room, is a voice and a pair of lips. And they're not coming closer.

Girls, I don't know what you'll hear. But this is a song of easy, dusty unhappiness; a folky tune that owes almost everything to the singer. Part Rickie Lee Jones, part Isobel Campbell, a face you want desperately to see smile.

[Brighton's Blanket have things for sale, but I can't see where to buy them. This is their website. I heard this track on the Crystal Cabinet Harvest Festival sampler.]

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Phantom Buffalo - "Cheer Up My Man". It's a weak story but it lets me name-drop:

So when I was at Rough Trade's London offices, flipping through their CD shelves, Richard from the Arcade Fire/Bell Orchestre pulls out this Phantom Buffalo CD in a clear vinyl sleeve and says "Have you heard this?" and I say "No" and he's like "It's really good," I think he explained someone from the label had played it for him, or maybe it had just been recommended to him and he hadn't heard it yet. But anyway I was like "Who are Phantom Buffalo?" and he shrugged and I put it in my pocket to take home with the Sufjan, Furnaces and Cameras. When I got back to Edinburgh I put it by the stereo and forgot about it. Occasionally I'd glance at it, but come on - Phantom Buffalo? An album called ShiShiMuMu? Clearly this not a good band. Probably some syrupy Japanese psych-pop, or a third-tier Polyphonic Spree imitator. Months went by. And then in September I put on the CD because I couldn't find my copy of Hayden's Everything I Long For (I think someone must have stolen it, or I lost it in Outremont -- heads will roll!).

And good god - holy cow, - boy... oh boy. ShiShiMuMu is fantastic. Phantom Buffalo play a supple guitar-pop that falls into a constellation with Bishop Allen, Reindeer Section and the Presidents of the United States of America, that bounces along rainpuddle chords to smallscale fireworks. It feels so British to me, though, so dry in its happiness, so bright in its melancholy. (Of course typically, they're from Maine. And sometimes they're called The Ponys.)

One of the record's greatest strengths is the sequence of tracks, the way melodies hide in one-other, the way harmonies come a bumping out as one song fades into the next. It's a great album, not just a series of hoppin' songs, and so it's difficult to pluck one out and expect you to fully understand. But I'll try.

"Waiting for my Man" this ain't. Instead it's squiggles of guitar and cantering drums, vocals like a long drink of milk, a reassuring jingle to take us through to the epic album-closing finale, a breakdown with that guitar sound, you know the one, the one that shines blueflaming in the dark, that lets us simultaneously lift our lighters and jump dance jump, a furious getting-down to music that's not quite getting-down itself. Sometimes you need a song to leave you room to fill in the blanks with your own vicious dance-moves.

[ShiShiMuMu was released in 2002. It's available from respective UK/US sources for $12/£9.99. According to their blog there is a new LP on the way, and also I think an EP or two has come out since ShiShiMuMu, but I have heard none of these. I would very much like to. More info.]

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A terrific relaunch-with-redesign at Poptext. Abby's promised more writing, more frequent updates, and yes indeed lots more music. Yay!

I keep forgetting to link to Who's the Boss 2006, the second annual awesome-off coordinated by my old friend Ed. It's a tournament of Excellence, pitting random things against each-other, with only a small nod to rhyme, reason and common-sense. Merlin defeats Beetlejuice, Vonnegut takes down Tom Robbins, black forest cake knocks out Halle Berry. (Last year's final was Christopher Walken vs Death.)

The "My Funny Valentine" Contest continues apace... You have until Sunday night to send me the best version in the world (vocal or instrumental, it don't matter). Submissions as of midnight Thursday UK-time include renditions by Chet Baker, Chris Botti, Elvis Costello, Etta James, Frankie Machine, Gotan Project, Jackie Gleason, Matt Damon, Miles Davis, Tom Barman, Over the Rhine, the Ray Brown Trio, Victoria Williams. (Several of these have been repeatedly submitted.) Do keep them coming - but only if they'll win.

Entries should be emailed to funniervalentine@gmail.com, or, if you're worried about the attachment being too big, via the ever-wonderful dropload.

Two people have sent versions that were not by the artist they thought, but rather by Chet Baker. Yay for P2P! :)

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Yo La Tengo with Daniel Johnston - "Speeding Motorcycle". How to put this song into words? How to say that this is, tonight, my favourite song in the world? How to say that it is as funny as true love, as true as the best jokes, as crazy as a wedding, as joyous as the end of a very, very bad day.

Yo La Tengo play like it's their first date, like they're not really sure. (This is of course because they are on live radio, trying to remember the song, trying to cooperate with this man who's yelling over the phone.) Daniel Johnston, meanwhile, goes wild, goes glad, goes angry and jubilant and desperate and proud. Yo La Tengo have an agreeable acoustic guitar, an organ, a pinch of drums. Daniel Johnston has his swaying, crackling voice: a voice so rich that it's sprouting vines, little bursts of flower, feathers and heartbeats.

It starts out like a comedy: a strange conversation and then Johnston's skewed accapella. But when the guitar comes in, Daniel gains an Elvis swagger, a James Dean unh. The strength comes into his jellybones. And now he can high-kick, jump-start, catch bouquets and tear off clothes. It's hilarious, it's ecstatic, it's tender as a fresh cut and red as all that blood.

Daniel Johnston recorded "Speeding Motorcycle" on 1989's Yip/Jump Music. He is a splendid, crooked songwriter who you should read about. Yo La Tengo covered "Speeding Motorcycle" on 1990's Fakebook. They are a sweet noisy pop band who you should read about. Late in 1990, Yo La Tengo were playing on Jersey City's WFMU (as they do), and Daniel phoned in. They decided to play a song. The song would be "Speeding Motorcycle". Yo La Tengo stood in their half-circle at the studio, all hesitant glances and grins. Over in Texas, Daniel stood in his socks in the kitchen and boy, he yelled his heart out.

(thanks to _highatus and bug138)

[buy Daniel Johnston stuff]

[buy Yo La Tengo stuff]

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The Pipettes - "Dirty Mind". Shimmy-shammy doo-la-la, clapclapclap and shiny guitar. The Pipettes are Brighton's polka-dot girl-group, the Cassettes are their back-up band, and "Dirty Mind" is their first single for Memphis Industries (see also The Go! Team, Dungen). It's got lipstick sass and the upward flit of skirts, lyrics that fall somewhere between Rachel Stevens and The Lucksmiths; it's got coordinated dance-moves and bumper-car backup vocals.

It's not retro, though, not quite - there's too much of today in the girls' flirting, in the songwriting. These kids have studied The Cure as much as they have The Shirells; they take some Lady Sovereign with their Diana Ross. They drink Guinness floats not Shirley Temples, and I bet they smoke cigarettes. (Then again, the 20th Century girl-groups probably did too.) It also sounds like they must have degrees in songcraft - this is such a perfect pop composition, all those bridges and choruses that fit together like girl and boy. Or, less scandalously, like man and woman. (Okay, or less scandalously again, like hand in hand.) In short: it's a hit.

[you really ought to pre-order the single at Amazon (the b-side is fantastic too)]

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In real life:

Frances are playing at NYC's Pianos tonight, at 10:30, with a horn section too.

Me, though, I'm a continent away -- I will spend Friday night at The Skinny's Glasgow Launch Party, at The Bastille: howlin' blues from Uncle John and Whitelock, DJing from the Reindeer Section (aka members of Mogwai, Snow Patrol, Arab Strap, etc), and lots lots more music. Free till 11. Say hello to the Canadian with beard and glasses. I might even buy you a drink.

It's been a victorious week: after winning contests at Molars and I (Heart) Music (enter now for a chance to win the new Bell Orchestre record), I am in a competitive mood. So here is a Said the Gramophone contest. A very modest one, where the prize is more modest still. Really it's just a request, a question, with a smile and a handshake at the end.

What is the best version of "My Funny Valentine"?

Chet Baker Rodgers & Hart's "My Funny Valentine" is my favourite jazz standard. I am looking for the world's best recorded version, something that will hold a candle to the interpretation I heard by a small man at a piano in a Latvian basement bar.

Send me the best version of "My Funny Valentine" in existence, instrumental or non, vintage or contemporary, by either Dropload or email, to: funniervalentine@gmail.com.

The deadline is Midnight EST on Sunday, October 23.

I'll (almost certainly) post the winner on here, with words too.

The prize? A little Said the Gramophone soapbox - you'll get to choose any one song (<10meg), with comments, here on the blog. It can be any track you like - pimp your own band, a friend's, U2 or (better still) something no one knows but everyone will love. Heck, you can even post a band I dislike - GG Allin, Rilo Kiley, the Arctic Monkeys... basically anything's fair game.

A silly prize, sure, but it's a silly contest.

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Ok, now onwards --

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The Cardigans - "In the Round". To be a Great Song isn't like being a Great Man. Julius Caesar had to win respect, cross the Rubicon, fight off assassins, and eventually get killed. Einstein had to learn some real tough math, to stick his tongue out on camera. And Harriet Tubman was given a very hard time.

A Great Song, though? Capital G, capital S? Well look how close "In the Round" comes, and all because of a guitar and bass - a golden guitar-line, a beat-copper bassline, - and, of course, an engineer who could record them. They're musical circles, bracelets, and yet in such perfect sympathy that the song begins to float, fly and hum.

Nina Persson helps, of course. The way she holds a note a little longer than You might, letting the pitch stay steady for an unexpected moment - a lingering thought. Cat Power after taking lessons from Kathleen Edwards. She asks people to clap their hands but we hear only dry computer claps, like someone who knows to only do as he's asked and no more. A robot who knows what he's good for.

It's not quite a Great Song, though. No. It's missing the chorus that would make it so. But look how close it comes - with guitar, bass, robot, singer, engineer. Look how close. Then stop looking and just listen again.

[From the Cardigans' new album, Super Extra Gravity, which is at least a lap-steel away from the light country of Long Gone Before Daylight, an edging back toward pop. -- uh, BUY.]

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They Live By Night - "Truth or Dare". Dirty drums rattle under They Live By Night's bending neon guitar and everything's a glad Killers-style garage-disco until the chorus comes along and things get a little complicated. Not too complicated, mind, just a swirl of M83 synths and "da-da-da" vocals that seem ripped from an old Camera Obscura LP. It's grungey garage with a twee girlfriend, the Mr Tough Guy who goes home and listens to The Pastels, a bully who's gone head-over-heels for the girl in the Belle & Sebastian jacket.

[more info on these Swedes]

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Elsewhere -

Mirah has released a download-only charity single for the victims of Katrina.

The ever-wonderful You Ain't No Picasso has the late Elliott Smith covering Big Star's "Thirteen".

Also at YANP, check the marvel that is the "Do They Know It's Halloween?" music video.

Let Son House's voice shake the blues out of you at Tuwa's Shanty. (my pick: "Walking Blues")

A big welcome to Musings of an Indie Kid.

These are two songs to be played in sequence. (There's also another song, at the end, that you can play after.) Seriously -- you trust me, right? Download these first two, put them in your tracklist, and play one after the other. In order. Like so:

1. Clogs - "Limp Waltz". This is a piece that's been sitting in a corner of my mind, looking up at me when I look at it, otherwise just sitting there. The best mornings are the ones when I get up in time to sit in the early light and put on my headphones and listen to this, still not quite here. I look at the piece in the corner of my mind and it acknowledges me and I acknowledge it, all soft dawn looks, and we both turn to gaze out the window.

This is classical music with only a kiss, a long black kiss, of indie-rock's texture and structure. It's so slow you can watch its fingers move. So slow you can hear Padme Newsome's viola turning in his hands, dark to darker, darker to brighter, brighter to light, to hope. It flowers, but the flowers lie there on the table waiting for someone to pick them up.

Unfortunately, Clogs are also burdened with hipster credentials: enough to fog things up and make it hard to see clearly. Sharing members with The National, admirers of Sufjan Stevens, tapped by the Bell Orchestre to tour with that Arcade Fire-buzzing troupe. But Clogs are at their best when they move away from Rachel's circular fables and the Orchestre's jazzy tracts - toward Reich and Mahler, long spaces and unrepeating sounds.

[buy]

2. Anita Humes - "Don't Fight It Baby". But look, we're not gonna get through this Tuesday with you just sitting there. Don't fight it, baby. You can't win. Don't fight it, baby

So off - rampadama ding-aling of drums, ticktocking percussion, - trundle down the steps and hop on along. Don't fight it baby.

Question: Does she really have her "voodoo working"?
Answer: No, but because she says so, yes.

Learn a lesson from Anita and her Northern Soul song, from her gang who will back her up, from the clapclap hands that make sure you make it through every set of doors you need to get through. Learn a lesson - and that lesson is, inevitably, don't fight it. Baby.

[try to buy ?]

Milo McLaughlin - "I Ain't Your Mailman".

I'm not quite done. This is a toss-off song, some scraps of guitar, some chords, a guitar and a microphone that's turned on. It's a song of "justs" and yet it's so phenomenally perfect, so entirely right, that the front of your face swings open and the id inside yells "YES".

Because seriously - This here request is merely humiliatin'... you're asking me to pick up the mail that is waitin'. Well. I ain't your mail man.

Work sucks, sometimes. Work sucks. And here's Milo who sings it just right, who sings it pissed-off and silly and pissed-off and happy (because he's off work), part Mark E Smith and part Leadbelly, showing me the way that the blues has gotta be here, right here, and in this day and age. He's so frustrated that he can't help but laugh, that he can't help but go home and record a song. And the song: true and awesome.

[info and more music]

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Elsewhere:

A terrific music video for Hello Saferide's "My Best Friend" - animations that slip in like shadows and dance like a dance party. And Annika's a cutie.

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Lots of really great stuff has been posted lately, I think. But we rely on you guys to tell us how we're doing. When you neglect us I promise we feel sad and wonder if we're screwing up. :(

Please listen to Agent Simple (Magnetic Fields crossed with fun! [!!!!]), The Shelleys, The Winks, White Foliage and The Rollercoaster Project, and tell us what you think. About the music, about the words, about both. Or just about how you are. How are you?