Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

We’ll Watch Our Heroes Trip And Fall

Archers of Loaf “Nevermind The Enemy” – No, I’m not posting this to complete the 90s indie trifecta along with Malkmus and Pollard, but it doesn’t hurt. I’m mostly featuring this track out of the realization that in the four years that I’ve been doing this site, I’ve never written anything about this song even though it’s a pretty big deal to me. For one thing, there’s a strong nostalgia factor – I bought this when I was 15, and I have a lot of vivid teenage memories tied in with it, almost all of them quite positive. On a lyrical level, this song and pretty much the rest of the Vee Vee album holds a strong appeal to me for its unabashedly competitive sentiment, even if it’s laced with cynicism and pessimism. Virtually all Archers of Loaf songs were about scrappy underdogs fighting for their fair share, and in retrospect, the 90s was the perfect time for them, at least much more so than the Goliath-favoring decades bracketing their era. More than any of that, my enduring love of this song is rooted in that it’s like a sort of Platonic ideal of indie rock guitar for me. With its casual artiness, raw exuberance and impressionistic effects, “Nevermind The Enemy,” illuminates exactly what I dislike about the drab, uncreative style and guitar tone of the overwhelming majority of contemporary rock bands. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Vivien Goldman “Launderette” – Unfortunately for the world, this brilliant a-side from 1981 accounts for a massive chunk of music writer Vivien Goldman‘s discography as a performer. It’s a shame given Goldman’s charismatic vocals and sharp lyrics about a love that begins, ends, and lingers on in an uncomfortable sort of afterlife at a tiny launderette. The bassline is particularly great, evoking both the churning of a nervous stomach and the gentle rumbling of a washing machine. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

On The Playground We Learn So Much

The Gossip “Listen Up!” – From the first time I saw The Gossip open up for Sleater-Kinney early in their career, it was obvious that they were a band intent on getting their audiences to move. Up until recently, they were working with a fairly limited musical palette, drawing mainly on rockabilly, blues, and punk moves. On their new album, they’ve opened up considerably, drawing heavily on elements from disco, funk, and soul (and punk variations on all three…), resulting in the most effective and impressive music in their discography to date. Make no mistake – they are treading on familiar ground covered by several bands new and old, but they make it work by avoiding the strangely oppressive sexlessness of most contempory punk-funkery and emphasizing the vocals of Beth Ditto, who sings with a confidence and authority owing more to Diana Ross or Kim Weston than most anyone in the indie rock universe. (Click here to pre-order it from Insound.)

Elsewhere: The aborted Britney Spears/DFA track has finally surfaced. If you’re interested, The Prettiest Pony has it, at least for a little while. Get on it. (Predictably, they had to take it down, but you really ought to go to that site anyway, they have a lot of quality tracks over there.)

Hot Ham Water

Talking Heads “Right Start” – Even if the Talking Heads had never gone ahead and finished this early version of “Once In A Lifetime,” they would have ended up with a brilliant song. Though the completed version is unquestionably superior and arguably the highest peak of their career, “Right Start” is a fine showcase for David Byrne’s gifts as a guitarist, as his parts are foregrounded rather than obscured by bass and keyboards as in the post-Eno arrangement. It’s also quite interesting to observe the shift in tone from this demo to the album recording – though the song ends up feeling epic and anxious, it began as a rather light-hearted and casual affair. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Zalatnay Sarolta “Rogos Uton” – I don’t understand a word of Hungarian, but it hardly matters with a singer like Zalatnay Sarolta. She’s overflowing with power, soul, and authority, whether it be on pure funk tracks or ragged classic rock tunes like this selection. This track is taken from a cd-r compilation made by APT‘ s Alec D, who apparently met and befriended the woman ten years ago and is distributing it in the hope that it will lead to finding her again. (Buying a copy of this cdr compilation will be tricky. Other Music in NYC has it for sale, but it is nowhere to be found on their mailorder website. You can try emailing the address on the inside sleeve: alec @ aptwebsite.com )

Oh hey, look – Bloggie nominations are open. I’m rather baffled as to why they have abandoned the music category at a time when music blogs are booming, but you can feel free to nominate this site in the following categories: Best American Weblog, Best Entertainment Blog (this site was nominated for this award last year, but Defamer won by a large margin in a rather strange apples vs. oranges vs. pomegranates competition brought about by the ridiculously broad category), Best Writing of a Weblog, and Weblog of the Year. It’d be awfully nice if the lot of you voted heavily for music sites in these categories (it doesn’t have to be this site), if just to send a message to these people re: the popularity and vitality of music blogs. After all, people like Eppy, Sean, Tom, Abby, Tyler, Jessica, Nick and Carl are much better candidates for the Best Writing category than whatever group of chumps who are likely to be nominated, and Tom Ewing has certainly had a far greater influence on the world of blogging via his recently-defunct NYLPM than most any tech/design geek who is going to be a shoo-in for the Lifetime Achievement award this year.

A Future Uncertain, Where Anything Can Happen

Stephen Malkmus “Malediction” – There were many songs from 2005 that I related to on a lyrical level for one reason or another, but none of them quite as much as “Malediction,” which touches on the major themes from my personal life over the course of the year with a rather startling degree of specificity. It’s funny, who would have ever pegged Stephen Malkmus to be such an effective life coach? Face The Truth was full of lots of good advice on dealing with the mundane details of life with maturity and grace, like an indie pop self-help album without ever being remotely lame or trite. At this point, he’s been my favorite songwriter for so long that it’s easy for me to take his new work for granted, but it’s songs like this that serve as a reminder that he’s never lost the ability to make wonderful music that seems as much like the soundtrack to my inner life as he did when I was fourteen. (Click here to buy it from Matador.)

Charlotte Hatherley “Stop” – This is a song about the future, and the thrill and terror that comes from not knowing what’s just ahead of you. In print, the lyrics seem obtuse and vaguely negative, but set to this enormous wall of post-grunge riffery and delivered in a dry, matter of fact tone of voice, there’s an overall effect of serenity in the midst of chaos. There are plenty of good reasons to be worried about the future, but that should never be an excuse to retreat from it. The best thing about the future is that we have some degree of control over it, which is only true of the past if you’re capable of changing other people’s understanding of it. I have a good feeling about 2006, not just for me, but for everyone. I’m not a religious or mystical person at all, but nevertheless, this song is my little prayer for you in the coming year. (Click here to buy it from Double Dragon.)

Lee Moore “Boweavil” – If anyone should ask you who it was who gave you these songs, tell ’em it was the Fluxblog – 2005’s done been here and gone! I’m no longer looking for a home, but I’m still looking for a home. (Click here to buy it from Dust-to-Digital.)

You Could Surely Try To Be More Alive

White Circle Crime Club “I’m Going To Expose You” – Aside from the bits of incoherant punky shouting, this is almost a dead ringer for Sonic Youth circa 1987, approaching the same sort of blown-out black and white sci-fi cityscape that Thurston et al evoked on Sister (aka my favorite SY album.) There’s one patch in particular (from about 4:21 through 4:50 or so) that I think might actually be directly lifted from an Sonic Youth record, though I can’t quite place it. (Click here to buy it from Conspiracy Records.)

Mates of State “Fraud in the ’80s” – Poor Mates of State – they’d be crazy for the duo to not to perform this song live since it’s probably the best song they’ve ever written, but if they do so, there’s just no way they could pull it off without a) some major cheats with pre-recorded parts (ie, most of the arrangement) b) additional players onstage c) totally overhauling the arrangement and potentially sacrificing much of the song’s appeal. But either way, there’s a lot to love in this studio version, from the specific tone of the overdriven keyboards to the gorgeous self-harmonization to the verses, which sound a bit like a perky version of Mary Timony. (Click here to pre-order it from Barsuk.)

The Things You Said, Forgotten

The M’s “Trucker Speed” – The first few minutes of “Trucker Speed” is impressive enough with its bustling rhythms and scorched guitar tones, but it’s all just a prelude to an inspired outro in which the “winter heat” of the psychedelic fuzz duels with the “summer snow” of a melodramatic string section. I’m pretty sure that the strings win in the end. (Click here for The M’s official site. Click here to buy tickets to see The M’s on a bill with Rogue Wave and The New Pornographers on New Year’s Eve in Chicago.)

Ms. John Soda “Nº One” – I propose an alternate title: “Can’t Get ‘Bull in the Heather’ Out Of My Head.” Well, the “Bull in the Heather” bit is a stretch, but it’s a little like being in a car with a person who hasn’t heard the song since it was on 120 Minutes in 1994 trying to remember how it goes while Kylie plays in the background. (Click here for the official Ms. John Soda site.)

Expose The Part Of It All

Robert Pollard “The Right Thing” – The first minute or so of “The Right Thing” is the ultimate Pollard demo castoff – a promising snippet of melody lost in a poorly recorded mess of unsure guitar playing and awful singing. If you’re familiar with Pollard’s extended catalog, you’ve most certainly come across a few of these and wanted to shout at him “FINISH THE SONG! YOU CAN SING AND PLAY BETTER THAN THIS!” And for once, he actually does, shifting into a proper full band arrangement after a solid minute of flailing for notes that aren’t necessarily out of his reach. It’s not the first time he’s juxtaposed a raw demo and a full studio recording in the same track, but as far as I can remember, it’s the most successful he’s ever been at being meta about his process while also providing an interesting dynamic that suited a song. (Click here to buy it from Merge Records.)

Also: Would anyone be willing to hook me up with the Doctor Who Christmas special? I simply do not have enough space on my laptop to get it via bittorrent, and I’m very eager to see David Tennant in the role.

Is This The Yule Tide?

Pledge Drive (featuring One Of Each) “Christmas Rhapsody” – It wouldn’t be Christmastime on Fluxblog without breaking out this old chestnut! This Christmas themed adaptation of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” goes a step beyond parody – it’s amazingly faithful to the original recording, and performed with a straight faced earnestness and professionalism that is both admirable and totally bonkers. (Click here for the official Pledge Drive site.)

Ed Shepp “Scenes From A Life: A Lonely Christmas” – Christmas may be a lovely time for many people, but being forced to bask in the glow of other’s joy and togetherness can drag less fortunate people down into the darkest depths of despair. In this clip, WMFU radio personality Ed Shepp tells the story of the most miserable Christmas of his life. (Click here for Ed Shepp’s blog and here for the Ed Shepp Radio Experiment archives.)

It Makes You Forget What It Means To Be Free

Patton Oswalt “My Christmas Memory” – The best Comedian of Comedy shares a Christmas memory from his youth involving Alvin and the Chipmunks. There’s really not a lot more I can say without wrecking the bit for you. However, you might want to avoid the “mash-up” version made by a fan that has recently been posted on Oswalt’s site – it’s overly literal and omits the funniest part of the routine, and that’s all before the beats come in. Yikes. (Click here to buy it from Patton Oswalt.)

Islands “Swans (Life After Death)” – At nearly ten minutes, this song feels like it’s stuck in some sort of eternal homestretch. It’s restless and eager, but never quite where it wants to be as it pushes onward towards some vague horizon. Unsurprisingly, the lyrics seem to be a meditation on mortality. (Click here for the Rough Trade site.)

Born In A Manger, Humble And Low

Cotton Top Mountain Sanctified Singers “Christ Was Born On Christmas Morn” – I try not to revisit the same record too frequently, but how can I resist putting up another track from Dust To Digital’s wonderful Where Will You Be Christmas Day compilation? It’s a goldmine of vintage Christmas music, plain and simple. This jaunty singalong dates back to 1929, and features a charismatic lead vocal performance from Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon, a lovely cooing backing vocal, and an inspired instrumental section played on the cornet. (Click here to buy it from Dust To Digital.)

Richard Reagh “No One Really Wants To” – This isn’t Christmas music, but it’s most certainly music for the winter, which officially begins today in spite of the weather being pretty damn cold for the past several weeks. Reagh captures a very specific gradation of melancholy on this track, lingering aimlessly in a zone where doubt, resignation, blankness, lethargy, and lovesickness mingle to create a general seasonal malaise. It’s not a fun track, but it’s very pretty. (Click here for the official Richard Reagh site.)

Vibrant But Somehow Virulent

Cadence Weapon “Vicarious” – Fluxblog kicked off 2005 with a cut from Cadence Weapon’s first self-distributed mixtape, and now as the year is winding down, I’ve got a song from his first proper LP on the Upper Class label. Rollie’s flow is as strong as ever, but the main attraction here is his broken game console production aesthetic, heavy with synths that are like the musical equivalent of bright neon lights burning holes in your retinas. (Click here to buy it from Upper Class.)

Spinvis “Ik Wil Alleen Maar Zwemmen” – This was going to get the “Video Treatment Day” treatment, but then I realized it would just be easier to leave the instructions “splice together random footage from Wes Anderson’s last three movies” to get the proper result. Maybe if there was a way to scramble it all together, like have Max Fischer riding around in Eli Cash’s car wearing a Team Zissou uniform or something. That’d be neat. (Click here to buy it from the Spinvis official site.)

It Feels Almost Like A Holiday

Wir Sind Helden “Nur Ein Wort” –

my problem with German pop
is that I can’t sing along
the words melt into formless sounds
and no concepts emerge

to help me to enjoy this pretty song
even more than I already do
I have written these new words
as a rough phonetic guide

it is somewhat ridiculous, I know
I’ve already botched the meter
but it’s okay, it keeps the pace
I’m allowed some poetic license

these new lyrics to the song
they help me to sing along
my silly English lyrics for a
German catchy indie pop song

this sounds like Sleeper and Nena
“99 Luftballons,” kinda
it’s good for dancing, a new wave beat
it makes you sway from side to side

and in the second verse
she sounds so smitten but I read
the English translation and
and it seems that she’s desperate and heartbroken

this bridge feels so familiar, I can’t help but like it
Wir Sind Helden is big in Austria and Germany
not hard to understand why

with English lyrics to the song
Americans could sing along
the more I hear it, the more I love
this catchy German indie pop song

(Click here for the official Wir Sind Helden site and here to buy it from Amazon Germany.)

Morane “Living On A Traffic Island” – The summer is long gone at this point, but there is no reason to shun a perfect summery pop tune, especially when its central theme – finding tranquility in the midst of frantic movement – is particularly relevant at this time of the year. The music is perfectly suited to the lyrics, evoking easy going Brazillian pop while communicating the jittery restlessness of someone who is throughly rattled by the rush of the city. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

Real Unprofessional, Like Them Eskimos

If you were wondering, I was in Missouri. If you’re now wondering why I was in Missouri, here’s at least 75% of the reason:

Kanye West @ Savvis Center, St. Louis, MO 12/14/2005
Diamonds of Sierra Leone / The New Workout Plan / Touch The Sky / Heard ‘Em Say / Get ‘Em High / All Falls Down / Slow Jamz / Through The Wire / Jesus Walks / Gold Digger

Kanye West “Late” – As you can see, this song was not in the setlist, but I can’t imagine that any of you haven’t heard the songs that were, even if you never bought the albums or listened to them intentionally.

A proper Kanye West/U2 bill surely would have drawn an interesting mix of fans, but this was a regular support slot for Kanye, announced long after tickets were sold out and as such, the audience was entirely comprised of U2 fans. Lucky for him, the people close to the stage in the ellipse area went wild for him, but the reception around the arena ran hot and cold, with many rockist jackasses booing him while he was onstage and later on, when Bono expressed how happy he was to share a stage with the guy.

The performance itself was an awkward mix of expert showmanship and good ideas not quite gelling as they should. He was backed by a DJ and a full string section, but the mix was horrible throughout the set, mainly resulting in the bass drowning out West’s vocals and the more nuanced parts of the string arrangements. With only a few exceptions, the songs were played in abrupt bits and pieces, rarely with any sort of graceful ending. However, many of the songs did come off well – the string interpolation of the musical hook in “Heard ‘Em Say” was gorgeous, “All Falls Down” seemed particularly well rehearsed, and “Jesus Walks” came across as the sort of arena anthem it ought to be.

The most exciting and memorable thing about this set was Kanye himself, and the sheer magnitude of his charisma. Unlike other U2 opening acts, West took full advantage of their ellipse stage design, jogging along the runway and working it just as well, if not better than Bono himself. The guy is a total natural, and definitely needs to tour more often. If he starts headlining stadiums himself, he really ought to consider stealing that ellipse concept. Really, anyone playing a room that size should. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

U2 @ Savvis Center, St. Louis, MO 12/14/2005
City of Blinding Lights / Vertigo / Elevation / Gloria / I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For – In A Little While / Beautiful Day / Original of the Species / Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own / Love and Peace Or Else / Sunday Bloody Sunday / Bullet the Blue Sky / Miss Sarajevo / Pride (In the Name of Love) / Where The Streets Have No Name / One // Until the End of the World / Mysterious Ways / With Or Without You /// Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of / Instant Karma / Yahweh / 40

U2 “Love and Peace Or Else (Live in Chicago 5/9/2005)” – Oh yeah, U2 played as well. This was my seventh U2 show (though two of them were not full concerts – Tibetan Freedom Concert 1997, and that show in Brooklyn from last year), and I’m pretty sure that in terms of performance, this was the best that I’ve seen them. Bono’s voice was very on, and he took full advantage of this by going for every vocal flourish that might not be within his reach on a regular night. I was pleased to see a show with a somewhat different running order from the one I caught at Madison Square Garden back in October. I was particularly pleased to see them play “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” (which I haven’t witnessed since Popmart) and “Mysterious Ways,” which I’ve seen four times before, but this was easily the best of the five.

“Love and Peace Or Else” was far better in St. Louis than in the 10/8/2005 MSG set, as was the rest of the so-called ‘heart of darkness’ mini-set that also includes “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Bullet The Blue Sky.” Though I quite enjoy “Love and Peace,” this is by far the weakest part of the Vertigo tour – for one thing, these three songs in a row feels more than a little redundant on a musical level, but more than that, there are very troubling political implications in the repurposing of the latter two songs that Chris Conroy discussed in his incomplete review of the tour:

But every night, when “Sunday Bloody Sunday” begins, I check out of the concert completely…It all comes down to a lack of meaning. I feel very strongly that any and all political and social impact that the righteous idealism of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” represents has been leeched out of the song by decades of overexposure. It’s been cast and recast to stand in for so many conflicts that it’s just not saying anything specific about anything that matters…Shouting “This is your song now!” is even more of an insult; it’s giving the audience free rein to wear the cloak of righteousness for five minutes, to pretend that they Really Care and that Violence Is Wrong, before they return to the world where it’s OK to say things like “I think we should just bomb the hell out of all of ’em” and be greeted by serious nods and murmured assent. When R.E.M. say “This is your song now!” before singing “Losing My Religion,” it’s a different scenario; both songs are overplayed popular hits, but one is, at heart, a pop song about personal emotions, and the other is much more outward-looking and focused on something that is obviously not universal: disgust at armed conflict.

“Bullet The Blue Sky” suffers from pretty much the exact same identity crisis. It’s been played on every tour since it was written, largely because the band don’t have any other songs in their catalogue that will allow them to show off bruising hard-rock chops. It, too, is a profoundly anti-violent song — it was written in disgust at how the American military was used to subjugate dissent in Central America — but every time it gets trotted out, Bono desperately tries to make it new and relevant by pointing it at some other conflict. On the Elevation tour, he came the closest he’s come to successfully making it matter again, turning it into a sharp attack on gun violence with a hammy-but-haunting riff on the murder of John Lennon by Mark Chapman. Seeing that song shoved down America’s throat when it was played on the first leg of Elevation was remarkable: here was a band that actually did have the balls to say something that large segments of the audience might not like; here was a band who wrote songs that represented their ideals, and performed them with conviction. But after September 11th, the band dropped that level of interpretation from the song, and hearing it played in New York City became a disturbing experience: inside the arena, it felt like the audience was taking the song up as a battle cry, as a “we want revenge” violence fantasy, losing themselves in the brutality of the music and not in its lyrics of
condemnation for the exercise of force.

On the Vertigo tour, “Bullet The Blue Sky” has become spectacularly muddled. It’s obviously impossible to sing a song about the American military abroad in this climate without having that song be about the Iraq war, and Bono knows it; he’s been incorporating “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” into the lyric, and suddenly the song becomes bizarrely, schizophrenically, pro-soldier — at last night’s show, Bono quite literally dedicated the song to “the brave men and women of the United States Military.” How are we supposed to take that? Obviously conflicts like the Iraq war can produce a difficult line to straddle — it’s virtually impossible to respect what the soldiers are being required to do, but it’s impossible not to respect the impulse to serve one’s country in the name of idealism. A song about hating the sin but loving the sinner could definitely be a rich gold mine for the band to explore, but “Bullet The Blue Sky” is not that song. “Bullet The Blue Sky” is a song of condemnation, of outrage. How the hell are we to take this confused, empty version?

I definitely agree with Chris on this score, and came into the show on Wednesday night with some strong bias against this segment, but at least this time around it didn’t feel as though the band was sleepwalking through “Bullet the Blue Sky” – it actually did have some power to it. This doesn’t change the fact that I’d very much like to never see the song played live again in my life. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

That Look That Says Exactly What You Think Of Me

Nellie McKay “Cupcake” – Nellie McKay has an obvious gift for melody and a lovely singing voice, but too often gets caught up in a sort of cringe-inducing preciousness that is on the outermost perimeter of what I can tolerate from an artist. The theatre camp cabaret affectation is fine with me because it’s clearly her gift as a musician, but her lyrics tend to be strangely long on forced wit and short on humor, making her political music come closer to that of The Capitol Steps than, say, Jon Stewart rocking out at the piano bar. “Cupcake” makes the most of her gifts and hems in her faults, presenting an elegantly crafted tune that’s one part old school AM radio ballad and two parts musical theatre as she stumps for gay marriage in the context of a traditional love song. (Click here for the official Nellie McKay site.)

Ladyfuzz “Monster” – Is there an aural equivalent of squinting? If there is, then do that with this song, and you can sort of get the feeling of an imaginary rocking Portishead song with beats jacked from that first UNKLE album. I love the keyboard spazz-out on the break – it’s like mayhem breaking out in a novelty shop. (Click here for the official Ladyfuzz site.)

Chow Nasty “Ungawa” – Chest-beating Tarzan party rock! This is some fun stuff, and that chant is a crazy earworm that will burrow through your skull if you don’t watch out. I’m glad that we have these guys, because God knows there’s a tiny little gap in the world ever since The Make-Up broke up a few years ago. (Click here for the official Chow Nasty site.)

Fiona Apple @ Nokia Theatre, 12/11/2005
Get Him Back / Better Version Of Me / Shadowboxer / To Your Love / I Know / Sleep To Dream / Limp / Paper Bag / Tymps / Oh Well / On The Bound / Red, Red, Red / Not About Love / O’ Sailor / Get Gone / Fast As You Can // Extraordinary Machine / Criminal / Parting Gift

Fiona Apple “Not About Love” – Fiona Apple didn’t speak very much during this show, but when she did, she mostly talked about being nervous and worried. If you know a thing or two about Apple from over the years, this shouldn’t be so surprising, but in the context of a performance so incredibly assured and compelling, it’s a very curious thing. If she never said a word, it would all seem entirely effortless. She throws herself into every moment of every song, investing every lyric with the fullest of emotion, be it nuanced as in “I Know” (a song which ranks in the highest percentile of my favorite songs ever; I was feeling chills the entire time), or ferocious and raw as with the “Sleep To Dream”/”Limp” bitterness twofer. “Not About Love” was a particular highlight, with its heavy vamp feeling like fists to the gut, and a manic outro that barely felt tame in spite of the band’s obvious control. It blows my mind that a person could be among the best vocalists and songwriters of their generation and on top of that be drop dead gorgeous and still deal with crippling pangs of doubt, but I suppose we’re all better off with some humility.

(For other very OTM reviews of this show, please visit Tom Breihan’s Status Ain’t Hood and SF/J.)

It’s so unfortunate that the critical reaction to Extraordinary Machine ended up getting so badly muddled by a debate over the relative merits of the Jon Brion and Mike Elizondo versions. I maintain that the final product is better by far, but in any case, the basic quality of these songs remains the same, and the best record of 2005 ends up getting screwed over by vote-splitting. I’m sure that in the future, this album will earn the reputation that it deserves, but it absolutely vexes me to see it get passed over by many of my peers in favor of flimsy hackwork in the meantime. I suspect part of it is due to Apple’s subject matter. Writing brilliantly on the topic of love is hardly a fashionable thing – lord knows Stephin Merritt has to wrap up his projects in novelty just to get any serious attention at all. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Destroyer “Sick Priest Learns To Last Forever” – A majority of the Destroyer catalog sounds best at night, but this track has the power to turn any moment of the day into the wee hours of the morning. It’s the perfect music for stumbling home in the cold, ready to fall over but still too far from your front door. It’s the sound of your stray thoughts echoing off the walls as you wait forever on the subway platform, barely keeping your eyes open, and the obscure lyrics start to make perfect sense if just because Dan Bejar is delivering them with such convinction. The sick priest learns to last forevah! Yeah, of course he does. Me too. (Click here for Merge’s Destroyer site.)

Some Other Circus Girl Is Dressing Up Tonight

Gene Serene & John Downfall “The Hours” – Previous songs by Gene Serene have seemed almost freakishly self-assured and confident, but this track is nothing but raw vulnerability, as she laments “the hours I put in / to be the other girl.” It’s the flipside of “I Can Do Anything” and “You Want Me,” the sort of nagging insecurity that motivates one to create a seductive persona in the first place. Something has to be driving your competitive impulses, you know? The music itself is gorgeous, built on the foundation of a slowed down version of the Cure riddim, distant guitar sounds, and warm, delicate bass notes. (Click here to visit the official Gene Serene site.)

Los Super Elegantes “Dance” – This is technically an ESG cover, but there’s got to be a better word for what Los Super Elegantes do with this song. The basic elements that make “Dance” one of the best dance songs ever written remain intact, but the band adds new verses and hooks that actually build on the greatness of the original. It’s rather like buying a buying a beautiful old house and renovating it so that everything you add to the structure only enhances the aesthetic charm of the design. (Click here for the official Los Super Elegantes site.)

Please note that both acts today are currently unsigned. This is sort of mindboggling given all the mediocre or outright awful acts who actually do have labels.

Making Me Feel Like I’ve Never Been Born

New York City radio, 12/8/1980
Los Angeles radio, 12/8/1980

Courtesy of WFMU’s Professor, these recordings scanning the airwaves of NYC and LA on the night John Lennon was murdered twenty-five years ago today capture some small amount of the initial grief and confusion that immediately swept the nation as news of his demise travelled from coast to coast. (Click here to buy it from WFMU.)

Matthew Sweet “She Said, She Said (Live)” – Of course, Lennon’s death in 1980 came when I was only a year and a half old. Like most everyone else, I learned most of the Beatles catalog through radio osmosis as a kid, in some cases not realizing that some popular songs were by The Beatles until much later. (This is definitely the case for a lot of the hits from from the The White Album onward – all of my exposure was heavily skewed towards the early singles from before 1966.)

My first exposure to “She Said, She Said” came via this cover by Matthew Sweet Born To Choose compilation that I bought in early 1994 for its R.E.M. and Pavement content. Aside from The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” it’s probably the most famous song that I first knew as an obscure remake. When I noticed that the song was a Beatles original in the liner notes, I realized for the first time that the band had great songs that were not hits, triggering my purchase of every major Beatles record in rapid succession over the course of 1994. I started with Revolver and Magical Mystery Tour, which remain my two favorites, and kept buying them out of order until I got around to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which I had perversely put off for some reason in spite of its reputation. (Click here to buy it from Amazon for a penny.)

My Name Alone Can’t Be Denied

Mike Jones “Cuttin’ (Remix)” – Is there another artist in contemporary pop music who is as consistently on-message as Mike Jones? Virtually every lyric on Who Is Mike Jones reiterates one of maybe ten key talking points:

1) His name is Mike Jones. (MIKE JONES!!!)
2) The name of his album is Who Is Mike Jones?
3) His cell phone number is/was 281-330-8004, you can feel free to call him.
4) Thanks to his skills as a hustler, he is about to become a superstar.
5) Formerly disinterested women want to get with him now that he is famous.
6) As a result, he does not trust scandalous hoes.
However, he does enjoy the following:
7) Swanging.
8) Woodgrain steering wheels.
9) Purple drank.
10) Princess cut diamonds.

Where others might see a lack of versatility and lyrical creativity, I see an artist who has intentionally or not created a hip hop equivalent of De Stijl, yielding compelling results from a highly stylized set of essential elements and limitations. And if you cannot appreciate that, I don’t know how you’re going to argue with that ska backing track and the yodelling sample. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

August Darnell “Christmas On Riverside Drive” – Sleigh rides, roasting chesnuts, drinking cider from a wooden cane, hanging out with his girlfriend in uptown Manhattan – it’s not hard to understand why Mr. Darnell opted for Christmas in NYC rather than San Bernardino. This is a perfect song for Christmas parties, which is why I’m getting this out of the way early in the month in case any of you will be hosting or DJing one. (Click here to buy it from Ze Records.)

I Like Dahncing At The Disco

Goldfrapp @ Nokia Theatre 12/5/2005
Train / Tip Toe / Koko / Slide In / Number 1 / U Never Know / Lovely Head / Fly Me Away / Satin Chic / Beautiful / Ride A White Horse / Ooh La La // Strict Machine / Black Cherry

Goldfrapp “Ride A White Horse” – It’s so rare that I get to see a proper keyboard driven pop band perform live, much less one that completely delivers the goods from start to finish. Goldfrapp play like strict machines, nailing every part of their songs with scary precision and visceral urgency. The band were accompanied on five songs in the set by a pair of dancers who performed choreographed moves in different fetish suits for each tune. (Wolf masks and bikinis for “Train,” silver latex robot suits for “Slide In,” disco-ball horse heads and tutus with horsey tails for “Ride A White Horse,” etc.) It’s a brilliantly designed spectacle for sure, but the songs are still the most impressive thing about the show. Some of the selections came alive in the performance -“Fly Me Away” and “U Never Know” were more effervescent compared to their flatter studio counterparts, and “Lovely Head” was dynamic rather than just haunting and ethereal – whereas “Ride A White Horse,” “Train,” “Koko,” and especially “Ooh La La” built on their foundation of inherant excellence with an extra jolt of energy and sexuality. Goldfrapp will be touring North America in the early spring of next year, so if you have any love for the band, I strongly encourage you to see them if they come to your area. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK (American version will be in stores on March 7, 2006.)

I Need A Rest From Our Petty Little Dramas

ABBA “You Owe Me One” – This was one of the final songs ever recorded by ABBA, intended for a ninth album that would never be completed. The track was eventually tossed off as the b-side of “Under Attack,” but has recently been reissued as a bonus track on The Visitors album in the new ABBA The Complete Studio Recordings box set. This is somewhat tragic, as it’s clearly one of the best songs the group had ever produced (so brilliant that it even has its own fanclub!) and would have certainly been a fine single and quite possibly a very big hit. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)