Das Racist - Relax
If you have Spotify click the pic and you can preview the album.
15 Albums
I got tagged a couple of times on Facebook with this little game. I hate Facebook, so I’m posting it here.
The rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums (cd’s, albums, tapes, etc. but in other words, not singles) you’ve heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall or that come to mind in no more than fifteen minutes.
- Pearl Jam - Ten (high school, first band, Alive)
- Bob Marley - Legend (hanging out after school, driving around, loving life and my friends)
- Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (and music became real again)
- Counting Crows - August and Everything After (high school, poetry, sadness, adventure)
- Michael Jackson - Bad (too young to really get into Thriller, was all over this one)
- Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker (my re-exposure to country music after a long time away)
- Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run (came to this late, good thing it’s timeless)
- Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones (rhythm and stories and heart and THAT VOICE)
- Tom Waits - Mule Variations (ditto, but later)
- Beastie Boys - Check Your Head (high school, late night raising hell)
- k-os - Joyful Rebellion (a perfect album, hip hop, jazz, funk, soul, dance, genius)
- The Lemonheads - It’s a Shame About Ray (wrote my first record review about this one, stuck with me)
- Steve Earle - Train a Comin’ (thought I could write like that, turns out I was wrong, keep trying)
- Sarah Harmer - I’m a Mountain (catchy and cute, amazing turns of phrase)
- R.E.M. - Automatic for the People (Nightswimming = everything about growing up)
Stay in Love [iPhone demo] - Rob Lindsey
I wrote you a sentimental letter
but I tore it up.
Keep hoping my emotions know better
but they’ve never known enough
to stay in love
to stay in love
Now I’m rocking my head to the music
that stumbles down my radio.
Some pretty pop princess cupid
singing “Boy, just take it slow,
and stay in love.”
yeah yeah, stay in love
Cause if you don’t hold on now,
you will die alone and gray.
Wishing on the stars and the clouds
that you’d stayed in love
In my dreams my seasick sweetheart
rides out my confused blues.
She navigates straight through the hard parts
and the ruckus of my moods.
And we stay in love.
We stay in love.
I wrote you a sentimental letter,
but I tore it up.
Missed yesterday’s BEDA. Proper blog later to make up for it.
I Got Mine - James Mathus & His Knockdown Society
I’m in the midst of ripping all my CDs into my computer for the first time ever. It seems like a futile thing to do with these all-you-can-eat streaming music services getting better and more ubiquitous by the day, but it passes the time. In the course of going back through 20 years worth of CD collecting, I’ve come across some gems I’d forgotten about.
Case in point, Play Songs for Rosetta by James Mathus (of Squirrel Nut Zippers [remember them?] fame)* & His Knockdown Society. I had a Zippers phase back in college, and I bought this record because of that association. It’s a different style than most of the Zippers’ stuff: more acoustic blues and jug band than big band swing. A mix of traditional songs and Mathus originals, Rosetta is a solid album all the way through, but the music itself is only half the story.
According to allmusic.com, Rosetta is the daughter of bluesman Charlie Patton and is someone who was instrumental in Mathus’ upbringing. Proceeds from the record went to help pay Rosetta’s living expenses as she sees no money from the sale of her father’s music.
Quite a story, and quite a connection. And a pretty damn good record, too! Hope you enjoy.
SIDE NOTE: A few of the people I follow around on the Internet are trying to “B(V)log Every Day in August (B[V]EDA)*, and I think I’m going to give it a shot. I realize I’ve missed a couple days, but I’ll try to make it up.
*Double parentheticals!
A Song for You - Donny Hathaway
One of the best love songs of all time.
A week in the life.
Things that have happened in the last week:
- Stayed up till 5am at IHOP.
- Played a rock show during which I got drunk while playing.
- Discovered the awesomeness of Mad Men.
- Got a new job.
- Quit my old job.
- Gave up on Heroes.
- Came down with a cold.
It’s been a very eventful few days.
Pledge to vote in the 2008 election and receive a free mp3 of fleet foxes and wilco covering ‘i shall be released’ live. (via Born To Be Nervous: wilco / fleet foxes / bob dylan)I mean, did you need another reason why Wilco is the best band in the universe? No. But this is a nice present.
By Jonathan Cohen
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Chicago radio stations and sports bars have begun spinning “All the Way,” a Chicago Cubs-themed ditty written by Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder at the request of Cubs legend Ernie Banks.
The track, with lines like “Our heroes wear pinstripes / pinstripes in blue / give us a chance to feel like heroes too,” was recorded last month during a Vedder solo show at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre.
According to Pearl Jam’s Web site, “All the Way” will be available for download in the “next few days,” and may also be sold on CD and “souvenir 45 singles.”
Vedder is a lifelong Cubs fan who has sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at Wrigley Field and also thrown out the ceremonial first pitch there.
(via)
Joshua Radin w/ Patty Griffin - You Got Growing Up to Do
Little music for a melancholy day…
