The Glorious Hum

The Prairie Spies

2008-07-24T16:39:00.005-04:00

The Prairie Spies - Blackout

Their name is a contradiction, but it's only a hint of what will be blasting from you speakers. In "Blackout" the call is "hands up to the light!" The power chords are raw, and so is the energy. I'm vaguely reminded of Eagle*Seagull's blog hit "Your beauty is a knife I turn on my throat," which I have a tendency to put on repeat.

The Prairie Spies will be playing tonight at the Red and Black in DC, so check them out if you can't. If she wasn't bedridden and suffering from a summer cold, a certain blogger you know would be there.

A number of my good Oberlin friends are from West Lafayette, where Purdue is located, so in their honor:

The Prairie Spies - Anthem for Purdue University
The band's website/myspace

Yummy.

2008-07-17T13:04:00.002-04:00

Just an FYI: I spent the previous weekend in NYC, and am looking forward to getting back to posting soon.

I don't know how soon...

My knees are cold

2008-07-10T10:11:00.000-04:00

Bon Iver - For Emma

Death is sitting, smoking on the corner. The street is his ash tray
and the city is his bedside lamp, only he can never completely turn
the electricity off. Lights flicker like a seizure.

Death sings under his breath in a voice indistinct
from the passing of time, in a whishing sound. Every strum
of someone else’s guitar is a day and every time a trumpet plays, a century.

Death believes in eventuality, lulls each living thing
into an eternal dream. He leaves: the smell of cigarette butts
on his breath, a soft puff of smoke in the air.

(Bon Iver, otherwise known as Justin Vernon, released For Emma, Forever Ago in the U.S. this past February. He'll be playing at this year's Pitchfork Music Festival)

Bon Iver - Skinny Love

Buy For Emma, Forever Ago from JagJaguwar
Bon Iver's website/myspace

Hate on the mainstream news media all you want

2008-07-08T14:17:00.000-04:00

You can download a recording of Fleet Foxes' concert at the Black Cat last night, thanks to NPR.

Poll: McCain: The Eagles or Lynyrd Skynyrd? Should Obama's running mate be Bruce Springsteen or Bob Dylan? Vote on the presidential candidates as rock stars.

Documenting the 2008 campaign in photos: in the Washington Post Magazine and Vanity Fair.

The New Republic: politicians, be afraid of Hollywood - in photos
Slate lets you play: choose a running mate for McCain and Obama.
Vanity Fair: Ms. Clinton's press core deathwatch, reconsidered.
NY Times Magazine: People are still talking about Rush Limbaugh?
The New Yorker: Covert War in Iran = Delicious

It's July, I'm melting.

2008-07-06T19:02:00.002-04:00

[photo courtesy of http://publicdomainclip-art.blogspot.com]
I meant to post this mix a few days ago, but here it is anyway...

Cold War Kids - Tell Me In the Morning
Ben Kweller - Sundress
Outkast - Hey Ya!
Animal Collective - Sweet Road
Wolf Parade - Disco Sheets
Bee Gees - Night Fever
The Young Knives - Weekends and Bleak Days
Green Day - Burnout
Beck - Rental Car

Technical Problems

2008-07-03T15:02:00.003-04:00

I'm having some problems with the display of the blog, so I suggest you refer to my RSS feed instead. Assuming you can read this post.

The Spectacular Blogopticon

2008-07-03T12:13:00.004-04:00

Here it is. Thank you, Vanity Fair.

Cold War Kids new album! (Teaser)

2008-07-03T10:53:00.002-04:00

I've finally caught on...

Cold War Kids - We Used to Vacation

MGMT Loves the Hype

2008-07-02T18:36:00.003-04:00

I blogged about MGMT when I fell in love with their song "Time To Pretend," and again when I saw them opening for Of Montreal but now ALL the cool kids love 'em (j/k, I definitely picked them up from another hip-blog-ster in '07). However, since they've made such excellent choices of spots to hit on their tour (now they're the ones headlining!), I'm giving them a second shout out.

MGMT - The Youth (album version)

Go see them on July 28th at the 9:30 Club! More tour dates.

Andrew Ripp

2008-07-02T18:26:00.005-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I've been having trouble finding a wireless connection for my laptop, and have been forced to resort to internet cafes. Anyway, I wrote this post over a week ago, so it doesn't quite reflect my current state of mind. Since then I've cheered up.

Andrew Ripp – It’s All Good

“I’m 50 miles to Chicago
there’s no fight
she don’t care if I’m wrong or right”

He’s a boy with a guitar and a not-yet-god-forsaken dream. What saves this song from the pits of cliché despair (rhyming “merry-go” and “growing old” makes me think of 300, a movie so bad it’s brilliant) is its simplicity. Ripp is so earnestly hopeful it hurts me to think about how pessimistic I’ve been feeling lately.

But I find myself being sucked in anyhow, so I suggest you take my advice and do the download.

Andrew Ripp's myspace

(I hate to refer you to iTunes, but if you go through his myspace that's the best way to get his album)

Stephen Colbert asks the all-important question:

2008-06-26T11:38:00.002-04:00

Cookie Monster! - What happened to you??? I've been devastated.

Bambi Get Over It: "Bad Man"

2008-06-20T15:03:00.003-04:00

Bambi Get Over It - Bad Man

The night is ancient and you’re sitting across the table from the impersonation of mystery, that one person in the world you’d trust with everything. Why you trust them is something you can never quite pin down. Between you, time is growing restless, made young again. The moment stops.

To ask “who’s going to save me now?” is to make some excuse, run into the grimy bathroom as a red herring. You find yourself looking—not at the “Bad Man” now sitting alone at the table—but at the threat in the mirror, someone you barely know. And staring out at you from the mirror is the person most responsible for all your problems.

Back to the band: I owe Song, By Toad for letting me in the know. As of yet I can't figure out how to buy their music, but I'll try to keep you all up-to-date.

Bambi Get Over It's Myspace, where you can hear some more tunes.

Sometimes I wish I had a fairy godmother...

2008-06-19T09:42:00.000-04:00

And then I remember...

Record companies go after Internet Radio
Tomatoes hate America!
Everyone's angry at the AP lately, but Michelle Malkin tops them all

R.E.M. "Hollow Man"

2008-06-17T15:05:00.004-04:00

On the Colbert Report:

Santogold "Lights Out"

2008-06-17T09:29:00.002-04:00

“Lights out
shoot up the station
TV’s dead, where's there to run
watch everybody come undone”

As of this week, the Orange Line is a place where time goes to die. So when the metro was vaguely functional last Thursday, there was a tremendous sense of solidarity amongst my fellow commuters. I lent a stranger my cell phone; people gave away their seats and made room for those getting on. Even more dramatically: eye contact was established. The usual dark silence of the train mellowed.

If this doesn’t sound pretty gosh darn special, you’ve never commuted in DC – to which Santogold is the perfect soundtrack. I’m not sure I recommend Santi White's debut album as brilliant, but I know I’ll be watching to see what she comes out with next. By the way, she'll be in DC on August 3...

Santogold - Lights Out

Buy Santogold (self-titled) from Amazon.com
Santogold's myspace

Goshdarnit, not again!: DCFC makes yet another great album

2008-06-09T13:22:00.000-04:00

Death Cab For Cutie - Long Division

"His head was a city
Of paper buildings
And the echoes that remained"

Plans was a gentle abstraction, an album to languish in when the sky was overcast, the future was uncertain, and the past was unbearable. Things have changed. Narrow Stairs is an album posed on the verge of a breakthrough, with a world suddenly ostensible. When I heard the album, I knew I liked it immediately.

The lyrics of Narrow Stairs no long rest on theoretical assumptions (“If I could open my arms / and span the length of the isle of Manhattan…”), uncertain predictions (“in the morning I fled / left a note and it read, / “someday you will be loved.”), and future plans (“if there’s no one beside you / when your soul departs / then I’ll follow you into the dark”) but on the concrete past and present, not to mention promises made and broken.

The album takes some interesting risks, the greatest of which is “I Will Possess Your Heart,” with its 4 and a ½ minute introduction. The arrangements are less groundbreaking as well, but the lyrics are closer to the surface, less impenetrable. The tradeoff is use of 3rd person narration, as in “Long Division” and “Cath.”

None of this is to say that Narrow Stairs is a happy album: in “Long Division” a man promises not to be a remainder (not that is works out); in “No Sunlight” and “The Ice Is Getting Thinner” the world is changing for the worse.

Buy Narrow Stairs from Amazon.com (or DCFC merch from the band)
Death Cab For Cutie's Website/Myspace

Death Cab For Cutie - Love Song (The Cure cover)
Chris Walla - Sing Again
Bonzo Dog Band - Death Cab For Cutie

The Bourgeoisie, Glass Ceilings, and Happy Feelings

2008-06-07T13:33:00.001-04:00

The Submarines - You, Me, & the Bourgeoisie

“It's time to be so brutally honest about
the way we think long for something fine
when we pine for higher ceilings
and bourgeois happy feelings”

Before the presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton spirals into a final rise or decline (or remains in this purgatory), it’s time for an honorary political deathbed post. Will she live for another fight?

Let me just say: I've long admired Ms. Clinton shattering glass ceilings, for forging new paths, But her campaign (a video summary) was the pinnacle of political pugnacity, attacking fellow Senator Barack Obama for his high-minded elementary school aspirations, his dubious not-really-a-Muslim actually-a-Christian status, his Elvis-like youth and ability to get voters (even the press!) excited (though he wasn’t so daring as to dance like the King), and the list goes on. Oh the gaffes! Mr. Obama says she’s likeable “enough,” that Pennsylvania voters are “bitter” and cling to the something or other, and it’s like those “working, hard-working Americans, white Americans” aren’t voting for him or whatever. The blind (Mark Penn) led the blindingly blind (Mrs. Clinton herself), while Mr. Clinton unsuccessfully attempted to have Mr. Obama’s head on a platter (consider Florida and Michigan?). Judas may have been: Governor Bill Richardson, or possibly the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

I'm glad to see this race, and the consequential Democratic squabbling, over.
The lovely Submarines released Honeysuckle Weeks in May, and ever since I've been floating underwater in an ocean of pop bliss. Come to sea with me!

The Submarines - Submarine Symphonika
The Submarines - Brighter Discontent (from Declare a New State!)

Buy Honeysuckle Weeks from Nettwerk
The Submarines' website/myspace

This is the start of a journey

2008-06-03T12:01:00.001-04:00

Gnarls Barkley - Going On

In The Odd Couple, Gnarls Barkley has packed up the otherworldly electronic beats and gospel choirs, and is moving out of St. Elsewhere. Two of the album’s radio hits, “Going On” and “Run (I’m a Natural Disaster)” document the change, albeit with the same electronic ambience and gospel choirs. Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green seem to have split their efforts alternatively taking their music’s energy up several notches and returning to the conflicted, chilled-out soul of the ‘70s, as on “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” and “A Little Better.” “Blind Mary,” one of my favorites on the album, takes the middle ground.

Buy The Odd Couple from EchoTunes
Gnarl's Barkley's website/myspace

"Run" music video

An absurdly hilarious article from the NY Times a few days ago: it's not easy being less rich.

She & Him: Volume One

2008-06-03T11:03:00.000-04:00

I may have previously expressed my dislike for those indie bands with a token girl who plays the tambourine and sings a bit. Neither do I much like actresses turned singers (or the reverse, to be fair).

But listening to M. Ward’s recent collaboration with Zooey Deschanel, I can’t help but enjoy myself. Maybe it was because my first encounter with the duo was a live version of “Magic Trick” on KCRW. Another possible explanation: Deschanel sounds a little bit like Jenny Lewis at her least pretentious, a more charismatic Marissa Nadler, or a less troubled Jenny Owen Youngs. And thanks to M. Ward, the instrumentation is perfect.

She & Him - Black Hole
She & Him - Magic Trick (live on KCRW)

Buy Volume One from Merge Records
She & Him's website/myspace

Rock Steady!

2008-06-03T09:25:00.003-04:00

I have not dropped off the face of the earth, just off the face of the internet(s – as Stephen Colbert would say). I have, however, been suffering from a number of afflictions and addictions: podcasts, finals blues, audiobooks, stomach flu, amtrak trains, summer plans. This is all a rather long-winded way of saying: I think I’m about to make a comeback.

Aretha Franklin - Rock Steady

While on vacation...

2008-04-01T08:26:00.002-04:00

...one should listen to Coconut Records' Nighttiming. My spring break was last week, by the way.

Coconut Records - West Coast
Coconut Records' Website/Myspace

SNL: It's 3 a.m. in the White House...

2008-03-10T13:30:00.003-04:00

And all the conspiracy theories are true...

SSLYBY "Glue Girls"

2008-02-27T20:53:00.004-05:00

Here I am again, laying flat on my back, tapping the sides - not the soles - of my boots on the floor, trying to decipher a pattern in the ceiling tiles. I only ponder philosophical questions at times like this when I'm waiting for life to happen. Or maybe I'm a trailblazer in the infinite number of decisions I could make, paths I could take, things I could say.

And, somewhere, in the optimistic pop, playful guitar solos, cowbell, and lyrics about two sisters and waiting for love, I get the sense Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin is sharing this state of mind. It's not about the lyrics, really, but the delivery:

"she can make-your-tongue
she can make-your-tongue,
make your tongue stick to the suuu-un.

May-be if i laaaaay low,
love will fall around my door
the dogs will let me know..."

And so it goes. Perishing will be released on April 8th.

Someone still loves you Boris Yeltsin - Glue Girls [alt link]
Someone still loves you Boris Yeltsin - Pangea (from Broom)
SSLYBY's Website/Myspace
Hear "Murder (I mean, Modern) Mystery" (also on the new album) at Daytrotter

I've been busy, okay?

2008-02-20T23:13:00.002-05:00

Some of you have been e-mailing me asking why I haven't been posting for the past month and a half. Here's an answer:

Sometimes I like to take a virtual vacation: I don't check my e-mail, pick up the phone, or turn on the television. I've been in need of one lately, and there's no way to pull it off during the semester...so I took a blog break instead. This semester is a bit crazy, but I'll try to get back to posting as often as I can.

Everclear - I will buy you a new life
Nada Surf - Do it again

More of 07's best music...

2008-01-03T00:17:00.000-05:00

...as determined by other bloggers. Though I was vain enough this year to post my own list, I have inferior collegiate musical taste and grammar, as some of my anonymous comment-leavers like to tell me. Instead, I defer to and will refer you to:

Chris and Mike (Why Rilo Kiley?) at Instrumental Analysis (nothing from Joe so far?)
Ryan's Smashing Life's 2007 Music Awards
Eric from Can You See the Sunset from the Southside?'s has an astonishingly long list of his favorite albums of 2007. I keep meaning to mention that I worship his "If it ain't punk it's junk" series (I highly recommend volumes 3, 5, and uh...I think they go up to 12?) and basically his blog in general, but somehow I always forget to let you all in on this important piece of information. Now you know!
Earfarm's top 10 bands to emerge in 2007.
Bag of Song's top albums...1-10. (Yes, the blog-love is mutual.)
The Duke's Top 27 Songs of '07 at The Late Greats
I Am Fuel, You Are Friends' Fuel Favorites of 2007
2007's Top Albums from I Rock Cleveland
From MOKB: Dodge's top 50 albums in 2007
Music for Kids Who Can't Read Good's favorite albums of 2007

and how could I forget... Largeheartedboy has collected them all.