Review Grab Bag - Happy Holidays!

To all reading this blog: Merry holidays. May 2011 be full of fun and productivity for all of you

Here's a bunch of records I listened to this year, and my opinion, resumed in one line. This idea is shamelessly ripped off the Thundercurrent Express, maintained by my good fellow David Axel Kurtz. Please publish his novels.

FORMAT:

[band name]: [album name]
[short sometime offensive comment]

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Angel Eyes: Midwestern
like Isis or Neurosis, but enjoyable. Maybe I should give Oceanic another try.

Arc Of Ascent: Circle of The Sun
a good stoner rock record from New Zealand. Just in: copying Kyuss still works.

Belle And Sebastian: Write About Love
You'll love this if you wear flannel and leggings.

Black Diamond Heavies: Alive As Fuck
White Stripes - guitar + Organ x Lemmy = fun and a headache

Caribou: Odessa
Water pop - tasteless, but enjoyable from time to time. Keep some around

Jack White: anything he made this year
enjoy your revenge on hype

Dreamend: So I Ate Myself, Bite By Bite
Black Moth Super Rainbow goes acoustic not really - awesomeo

Dum Dum Girls: I Will Be
Enjoyment follows a logarithmic curve with time

High On Fire: Snake for the Divine
"I'll take the usual please. Wait - make that a double."

LCD Soundsystem:
Made for clubs. I don't go to clubs.

MTV: Lost Boy
Self production sounding like a load of fun.

Mogwai: Special Moves
Post Rock for dummies

Mono: Holy Ground
Goddamnit. Japanese rockers are the craziest.

Moonhearts: S/T
What does it take to sound honest these days? 29 minutes, apparently

Mountain Man: Made The Harbor
Vermont: good cheese, good music. Bonus points for recording a folk record in an old ice cream truck

No Joy
The single sounded so much more memorable than the album…

Pet Milk: Demo
What does it take to sound good these days? : 17 minutes, apparently

Rien: 3
Only the French could use post rock yet sound innovative and miles above the national musical average

Sleigh Bells: Treats
Proving that Lo-Fi sounds better unfinished

Sloath: S/T
Bonecrushingly relaxing

Soft Pack: S/T
Incredibly close to being perfect

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More to come. Expect an obnoxious end of the first year of the decade favorites list, as well as a short mix as soon as its uploaded.

MERRY WHATEVER. I love you all.

JNCT

...

list #6.1: where to procrastinate

http://whenparentstext.com/

http://trollscience.com/

http://www.dead-philosophers.com/

http://www.savethewords.org/

http://chainsawsuit.com/

http://awkwardfamilypetphotos.com/

http://hipsterhitler.com/

http://www.lookatthisfuckingperson.com/

http://www.lamebook.com/

http://gawker.com/

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

http://www.sporcle.com/

http://www.picagon.com/

http://babieswithlasereyes.com/

http://failbooking.com/

http://www.urbandictionary.com/

http://brownsharpie.courtneygibbons.org/

http://abstrusegoose.com/

http://www.theonion.com/content/index

http://www.fmylife.com/top

http://www.robandelliot.cycomics.com/index.php

http://mylifeisaverage.com/

http://unhappyhipsters.com/

http://www.questionablecontent.net/

http://failblog.org/

http://thereifixedit.com/

http://ericsaysfuckyou.blogspot.com/

http://awkwardfamilypetphotos.com/

http://oracleofbacon.org/

http://epicwinftw.com/

http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/

http://itmademyday.com/

http://pictureisunrelated.com/

http://thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/

http://oddstuffmagazine.com/

http://hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com/

http://www.daisyowl.com/

http://www.latfh.com/

http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays

http://scanwiches.com/

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

http://xkcd.com/

"Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment."
Robert Benchley (1889 - 1945)

Untitled # (2+√5)/√5

 lets play a game. It's called spot the grinning mustachioed man with aviators and a star around his lefteye.

My computer tells me that it's three am. Explaining how I got precisely to the point at which I'm standing right now would be a boring and long story, truth is I'm just procrastinating - as of 20 minutes ago, I like Radiohead's OK Computer, ending a solid 5 years of vague indifference towards their repertoire generally and hatred towards Creep more particularly.

Anyways, an announcement: as soon as I am done with what I'm supposed to be doing at this very moment, and stop reading the procrastination page on wikipedia, I'll be posting mixes all over this place. One a week. every week. until next year. In a similar fashion, record reviews will be twice a month.

FOR THE SAKE OF SELF CONTROL.

BLARGH

JNCT
...

Decembrrrrrrr

For those of you who haven't noticed, it got pretty fucking cold lately.

Chanukah, Christmas, whatever you do, you're probably going to listen to music anyways. Which is why you should get PAYOLA MIXES and your weekly dose of ElephantSpaceSnowstorm.

Doctor said so. Don't discuss with the Doctor, d'accuerdo?


To go with freezing your gonads off, here's a healthy dose of contradiction for you. Can you fit Fugazi and Eels on the same mix? How about Sleep and Vampire Weekend? Spacemen 3 and AC/DC? Well, I just did, and I think it sounds ok. This isn't a compilation for anything or anyone, it's just music, for you, when you want it. Little bites for the busy.

JNCT...

THE SELF TITLED INTERVIEW: LAETITIA SADIER

http://www.self-titledmag.com/home/2010/11/24/the-self-titled-interview-laetitia-sadier-of-stereolab-monade/

I guess I just love Laetitia Sadier for her music.

JNCT

...

Throwback! 3 - The Emperor Strikes Back... I know, that's episode 2. Qu'est-ce qu'il se passe quand on lance de l'ail contre un mur?

My dad doesn't have a vinyl collection. His CD shelf is basically a mix of classical music him and my mother got when I was born (Mozart makes kids smarter, anyone?) and a collection of what's been in the top 40 of whatever country he was in pretty much since CDs became available commercially.

After numerous siftings through this nevertheless exhaustive collection, the only two albums I've taken to the relative safety of my room are Eric Clapton's Unplugged and Soundgarden's Superunknown. The first he got because it has a song that mentions my sister's name a number of times (I'll let you guess what that is), the latter he described as "a mistake I only got because it was number 1 somehow. I've never listened to it entirely". For a long time, he described my music with the expression that my great-uncle uses to talk about old-style rock'n'roll: de la musique de peaux-rouge. Which happens to be mildly offensive, so I'm not translating that.

So no vivid vinyl memories for me. No passing on of buried treasure, no shared tastes. Sure, I had a vague backstreet boys moment around 9, as well as other momentary radio crushes, but they always felt tasteless - going with the easy option, what was readily available.

So what changed that? Well, I didn't write this lenghty useless introduction for nothing. If you're still reading this, it means you have some nerve, and must be really interested. I'll skip the Linkin' Park and Good Charlotte episodes and the Blink 182 covers (although I have to say Travis Barker is still a sick drummer), and finally get to my point:

DIGIMON

That's right. I would probably be a very different person if it wasn't for that fairly catastrophic child's pokemon ripoff cartoon. More specifically, the movie that spawned from its success, and very precisely, the sequence with Smashmouth's song All Star. To this day, I still haven't thought too much as too what the song is exactly about, nor do the lyrics make any sense in my head (I was still learning English back then). It's been about 10 years since I first listened to this song, and I finally got around to actually reading the lyrics. 

Verdict: song's pretty bad. But it made me get Smashmouth's 2001 self titled album: 

Beneath the horrible cover was the first CD I had really asked for. As mentioned before, and like for Flavio, I was learning English at that time, which made me able to consider the lyrics more as sounds then anything with a message (let's be honest, the words to most of these songs are fairly horrendous).

However this record shaped my tastes: I liked the coolness of the first track, the relative "violence" of the second track (qualified by my dad as sounding like a drum carnage), the violin synths of the 3rd track pretty much made me want to vomit... 

So why would I ever talk about an album that is important to me only it was a random starting point? 

First of all, this was Flavio's idea, and I just went with it. Read his own blog too, it's awesome.

Second, it's obvious that this record has little musical interest. Sister Psychic still sounds like an ok song to me, and memories of Shrek and Digimon are woken up by listening to All Star. The Monkees' I'm a Believer is also covered on this record, and that reminds me of The Spy Who Shagged Me, which is probably the movie that turned me on dumb absurd comedies. The harmonica solo in that one song is kinda cool, that gnarly synth in Force Field makes me understand why I like Tobacco today, Shoes'n'hats is a bro version of AC/DC (which remains one of my favorite bands). You could even say that Smashmouth's only feat is that they take a number of influences/characteristic sounds (ranging from hip hop to metal and going by 60's pop and lounge) and making it sound like a cohesive blend pop record. 

In short, it was a pretty awesome introduction to modern music for a 9 year old kid. Your young cousing/familly member is coming over for Christmas and you don't know what to get him? This blog just provided the longest most inconvenient and specific gift advice of all times. Enjoy.

Quand on lance une gousse d'ail contre le mur, elle rebondit. C'est le retour du jet d'ail.

This one's for you, Arthur.

...

"THOUGHTS ON... " - EP. PRIMERO: HALLOWEEN

The best thing I like about Halloween is that I have an excuse to listen to the Misfits' Monster Mash without shame (apparently they started sucking when Danzig left? Nice of the music press to inform me of that after years of listening to Famous Monsters... meh. You know what, AV club? Go cook yourself an egg).

The second best thing is getting a mix from Flavio. It kicks ass. GET IT HERE!

Other than that, I'm the grouchy old man that doesn't give you candy when you ring at his door. I've half-assed my costumes for the past two years (I wasn't even doing halloween any year before that), and I don't like getting scared.

What really makes me excited is dumb ridiculous senseless laidback things and beers. Which is why, next Halloween, I'll be staying home, trying to lure my trickortreater friends into watching Plan 9 with me and drink weird allegedly pumpkin flavored beer.

Ok I'm done. If you've made it through this rant, here's a r e w a r d. kind of.