Ear of the Tyger

Burying the Hatchet

2008-06-27T03:33:00.000-07:00

This is for you:

You know who you are.

Fresh!

2008-06-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

Dolly P. is so cute!

Keep on Sighin'

2008-05-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

If I could have my way, I'd ride the bus all day today and listen to this on repeat:

Siiiiigh.....

Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles ...

2008-04-10T10:31:00.000-07:00

These Days

2008-04-09T07:53:00.000-07:00

Nico. I stopped in a coffee shop on Sunday after a post rainy walk and they were playing 'Chelsea Girl'. I love a lot of moments on this album. But 'These Days' is the perfect moment. Perhaps one of my favorite songs ever. Belle and Sebastian took everything they could steal from this album. This is a sad film someone made in Berlin for 'These Days', life running by too fast through a grey-lit world. But really this is the kind of song you have to close your eyes for.

Gonna use my arms...

2008-04-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

How did I forget about Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders? Look at those bangs! Those eyes! Those goofs!

Queen Jane Approximately

2008-03-31T18:42:00.000-07:00

Out of tune guitars, all the drums on the right channel, the organ and upright piano, song arrangement slapped together in one hour/day... I can't get enough of this song, today. Doesn't that piano at the beginning just make you feel you're going to have the time of yr life? And then the organ coming in with that voice.

Someone knows how to rock all the iMovie effects. I'm sending pix to whoever made this video and getting them to do mine.

True Affection

2008-03-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

In my own (very minutely important) opinion, The Blow's take on the troubles and tribulations of what it's like to be a little neurotic and in love is the most honest since the hey day of the girl group era. This track of hers, called "True Affection," makes me feel sad every time I hear it. It's her treatise on what it feels like when you realize that even if you and some other person love each other very much, it doesn't mean everything is going to work out, and it's pretty spot on. "True affection floats/true affection sinks like a stone/I never felt so close/I never felt so all alone." I also love its references to how being love being like sinking underwater with someone. I wish she was still performing the songs she made with Jonas Becholt.

Homegirl

2008-03-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

I feel like I need to make a memo to all the music listeners in the world. Or just do an old fashioned megaphone broadcast:
HEY YOU GUYS! THAT THAO RECORD? IT IS A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! YEAH, IT'S GREAT! YOU SHOULD REALLY LISTEN TO IT! I'LL MAKE YOU A COPY IF YOU WANT. JUST LET ME KNOW.
Now I just need a sandwich board to walk around in, advertising for Thao. It's weird, because this really shouldn't matter, but I feel really great that she's Vietnamese. I have some actual Viet pride. I feel like one of my homies did some right in the world and made something great.

Up From the Deep

2008-03-10T15:11:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to so much Bruce Springsteen lately that I've been getting to hanging to some corners that I haven't been to before. Sometimes, a certain artist enters you life like a wave and then recedes. Later waves come further up yr beach revealing new benthic treasures.

With heavyweights like Dylan , Young and Springsteen there always new special songs that you never expected, or were hiding in plain sight in their vast oceanic catalogs.

Lately I've been hooked on the song 'Jackson Cage' from 'The River'. Lord, would this be fun to see live. I love the combo of dueling Wurlitzer(?) organ and piano. Funny, to me, melodically and structurally this song seems very much like something Elvis Costello would do. I can easily hear him singing it.

It must feel awesome to be on a stage buffeted by a loud organ on one side and a crisp piano on the other.

The NY Border

2008-03-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

I'm still lamenting that the Aislers Set isn't practically required listening. I discovered their record "Last Match" at a living room party my friend Gwen threw many years ago. I started listening to it again lately and it's the perfect intro back into spring - light, airy, sweet. Kind of like a rose flavored marshmallow.

Of course, they're currently on hiatus.

Here it comes

2008-03-07T14:02:00.000-08:00

Speaking of 80s/90s pop ...

The other day I was at the Good Will buying a hot plate and some muffin tins (go ahead and ask but I won't answer.) when I ran across a rack of used cassettes. My old vehicle has an old tape deck so I looked to see if any of the tapes were worth the $.50 price tag. Amongst the multiple copies of Kenny G and Whitney tapes I found the self-titled record from 1990 by The LAs. It has that song on it called There She Goes. It sounds great on an old tape deck in an old truck with the NR button turned off( I say bring the noise!).

Here's the band playing two songs from the record (Son of a Gun and There She Goes):

Etcetera

2008-03-07T12:11:00.000-08:00

When I was in the college radio biz, a British dude I worked for turned me onto the Wedding Present, and consequently Cinerama, both great projects by David Gedge. David Gedge is a little like a British Stephin Merritt, prolific in pop songs and catchy melancholy. My favorite of his is this track called "Your Charms." The late John Peel was also a huge fan of David Gedge's, and remarked what he loved about his songs was the way they sound like he was just rambling at you over a pint instead of singing actual lyrics. This track I think is a good example of that, especially in the chorus: "And darling, I just can't think clearly/It happens when I'm in your arms/And my heart is pounding/How pathetic is this sounding?" The track is also a reference to early girl-group pop from the late 50s and 60s, when the word "charms" was substituted in for the word "sexy prowess" (see: The Supremes' "Nothing But Heartaches": "I can't break away from his charms/I can't break away from his kiss/'Cause his kiss I shouldn't miss...") Well played, Gedge!

I think my head exploded...

2008-03-05T10:02:00.000-08:00

This is criminally cute, dudes.

Ultimate Rock Band

2008-03-05T08:05:00.000-08:00

Last song of the last show:

S-K are still the ultimate rock band.

Great mix tape

2008-03-04T09:18:00.000-08:00

I bought the Bob Dylan Artist's Choice CD a few days ago at Starbucks (Yeah, I know they're just horrible and how could I ...). It's great. Just what I want in a mix tape. A few tracks from groups I know and love and a few things that are new to me and really great. I have a list of new records to run out and get now.

You can hear samples here.

My favorite track is the weirdest one. It's called Tezeta (Fast) and it's by Getatchew Kassa. In the notes Dylan says he first heard this song on an unmarked disc that someone made for him and he thought it was a Cajun record played backwards. The description is apt. It's actually a group from Ethiopia. I found Tezeta (Slow). It sounds less backwards Cajun but is also good.

Find Me a Word That Rhymes

2008-02-28T12:50:00.000-08:00

I've been preoccupied with this Pavement song today called "Spit on a Stranger." It's from my favorite ep of theirs of the same title. In particular there's a couplet of lines that I've been working over: "Honey, I'm a prize and you're a catch and we're a perfect match/Like two bitter strangers/Now I see the long and the short of it and I can make it last/I could spit on a stranger..." I don't know if it should make me feel gooey inside or just sad. Maybe both.

Another good track off that ep is called "Harness Your Hopes," which has some of the most ridiculous of their lyrics ("find me a word that rhymes with Pavement/and I will kill your parents/and roast them on a spit"). Makes me want to row a canoe for some reason...

District Line

2008-02-26T12:03:00.000-08:00

T got me the new Bob Mould record (on vinyl, so yes I mean record) District Line as a present for my half-birthday yesterday. (note: only 181 shopping days until my birthday!) I've only listened to it once so far. It's sounding great. Reminds me of the Sugar days before Mould got so excited about electronic effects. I appreciate the fact that he wanted to explore new sounds but the electronics never seemed to be working in support of the songs. He was writing the same kinds of songs as before and then laying on the keyboard tracks. It was like cake with too much frosting. Is that a Patrikism? Anyway, on the new record Mould has the electronics working with the songs. It's sounding great. Here's a sample.

Davercize

2008-02-25T22:38:00.000-08:00

No joke, I have a lot of vivid memories of seeing this video (and it's companion, "California Girls") on the forbidden MTV when I was a wee one. It might be my first memory of music.

I guess this explains my exploration of leopard print and vinyl red heels. Who are you blowing kisses to, Dave?

Living Life

2008-02-17T15:52:00.000-08:00

Filmed at the Daniel Johnston last week, this song is the sweetest taste of bittersweet:

Never heard it before the show but it's that special kind of song that lingers bright in the heaven of memory.

ThankYou fro Being a Friend

2008-02-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

Are TV Themes as cheerfully plainative like golden girls anymore?
I don't watch TV anymore.

I would sing this to all my friends, if they wouldn't disown me for doing so.

Beauregarde - Testify

2008-02-12T14:44:00.000-08:00

A while back Emily C gave me a copy of an album that is one of the best things I've seen/heard in a long time. It's by Beauregarde. He was a pro wrestler in Portland, Oregon in the 60s and 70s. The record features future Wiper Greg Sage. I've been listening to it a lot lately. This video will give you the idea:

I have a soft spot in my heart for the wrestleRock (I wonder why?). So come on everybody do the hammerlock!

Garfield and the Theme from Taxi

2008-02-09T12:21:00.000-08:00

I love this, a mash up of two great 70s icons. The Rhodes piano & flute are a super team that deserve an equally legendary status as Starsky & Hutch...or Garfield & Odie.

Won't Back Down

2008-02-08T16:06:00.000-08:00

Everytime I walk through Target Center Skyways this week, they've had Tom Petty songs playing. Must be because he played the superbowl.

Today I had this song stuck in my head for the rest of my skywalk. I'm annoyed with a political situation at work, so it fit my mood perfectly.

Save Me

2008-02-05T07:36:00.000-08:00

I was listening to 'Bachelor No. 2' by Aimee Mann last night but this morning, this song was in my head.

This is not even on the Batch2 album, but 'Save Me', off the Magnolia soundtrack, is her career knockout. The kind of song that once heard, ghostly follows all of the artist's work. Every element works: the beautiful Bob Dylan wandering melody with held back vocals, the subtle introduction of instruments and especially the spare Neil Young 'Heart of Gold' bass-bass-snare drums where the hi-hat really comes in at the chorus. For all the listening people do to Bob and Neil, not many use the tricks of spareness that really make them work. Not like this. Every track on 'Bachelor No. 2' works with a familiar classic intimacy, like this one.

Faster

2008-02-03T10:59:00.000-08:00

I'm a pretty bad runner, the kind that likes to walk every second lap or so. I generally am almost unable to do it at all unless I have a really great record to keep time to while I'm trying to burn off that coconut cream tapioca pudding I had polished off a few hours earlier. My favorite running music right now is Les Savy Fav's Let's Be Friends. It's probably my favorite record of 2007. I remember seeing them at the St. Paul Student Center (i.e. Bailey Hall cafeteria) and they took all this stuff that was backstage (Christmas trees, American flag, podium) and integrated it into their show. The ending of the show was so catastrophic and ridiculous I felt weird for about a week afterwards. The first track off of Let's Be Friends, "Pots and Pans," is beautifully epic in the beginning, and has that kind of beat that makes you feel like you're out in the Nebraska countryside, running past farms and tractors and a big blue sky. "Patty Lee" is also another great running song and lots of male falsetto and nice guitar lines. I had a big crush on Seth Jabour for a long time, so sometimes while jogging and listening to "Patty Lee," I'd pretend I'm getting fit for my imaginary date with him. There are also a lot of bona fide fist-pumpers ("The Equestrian", "Raging in the Plague Age") to amp myself up to pass the speedwalkers in my way, leaving them in my dust. "Raging in the Plague Age" has one of the best teenage first-pumping anthem lyrics to it: "Draw up the drawbridge, draw down the blinds/everyone inside is getting high tonight/waiting for the plague to move on/no one's getting sober until the liquors all gone".

If you want to witness the mayhem of Les Savy Fav, check out this clip of them off of Conan O'Brien at the end of January:

Vanilla Dome Blues

2008-01-29T13:12:00.000-08:00

O, Sleep -

2008-01-29T04:04:00.000-08:00

sweet as any pleasure. After a weekend of late to bed and early to rise, I finally "got some". To make matters better I woke up with this song playing through my mind:

except it was in Fleetwood Mac fashion.

Digging

2008-01-25T14:40:00.000-08:00

Am I the last person to find out how awesome the Blow Monkeys are?

What a Day, For a Night

2008-01-23T12:28:00.000-08:00

At the bus stop, this song keeps running through my head, several days in a row. I like the video, reminds me of another MPLS musician/writer, Dylan Hicks.
He would wear all red too. And voila... casting the internets out with brief googly-doo produces this:

Live - What a Day 2004:

Voice of an Angle

2008-01-21T20:42:00.000-08:00

I mean angel...

but I always thought it was Rick Danko singing.

One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21

2008-01-20T18:38:00.000-08:00

It is cold out...winter reminds me of technology... cold, digital and because we need it in the winter to stay alive & connected. One of my favorite winter isolation songs is One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21 by 'The Flaming Lips'. Beautiful song, no one ever seems to mention this one when talking about the flaming lips, but it's one of their best. Maybe I'll put in that 'UFOs at the Zoo' DVD and use technology to motivate my brain circuitry to recall the concert last summer.

One More robot Legomation

Bad

2008-01-18T12:18:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I am not a "huge" (i.e. "ginormous") fan of the new Spoon record. It gets to be a little boring in the middle. BUT, that third track "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" ranks in the top 10 songs of the 2000s for me - I probably listened to it about 50 to 150 times over the course of a couple of days when I first bought the record. It's ethereal-ly perfect, sexy and satisfying. In my Itunes, if I play "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb," usually it's also tracked with the Runaways' "Cherrybomb." The thing I love about the Runaways is how they were these cute high-school girls who managed to look so f'in' baaaad. I mean, look at them:
They look like they're going to steal your lunch, eat it, make out with your boyfriend in front of you, and then kick dirt in your eye and walk away like it's no big deal.

I always wanted to look bad. If you look bad, it's easier to get the bartender's attention or to convince that creepy dude on the bus to not try to talk to you. It's pretty hard for me to look bad. It's hard for me to not look 13 and have people ask me if I'm a child. So I've been trying to practice sneering.
This is how I look normally:I generally look a little confused but attentive. (These were all shots done in my bathroom by the way, since it's the only place in my apartment with a mirror to practice sneering to.) Okay, this is me with my first "bad" look. I just thought to myself "look bad!"I don't look so bad. I just look like I smelled something bad. I think here I am trying to incorporate more "frown" to my sneer:I still look like something just smells bad, but now I am mad about it! Now here, I'm just trying to get more of that "bad" feeling going, like "Hell yes, I WANT TO LOOK BAD!"Uugh. I don't look very "bad." I just look like one of the Runaways took my lunch money and laughed at me. I'm going to go back to practicing what I know how to do already, which is lookin' cute:Aaaah.... much better. So tie tie from sneering... Sleepytime!

Cast Off Crown

2008-01-18T10:21:00.000-08:00

The first 30 seconds of 'Cast Off Crown' by Deerhoof was kicking ass in my head this morning. It is such an awesome monster groove where the drums, guitar and keyboards all pass-the-dutchie seemlessly. The song then flys in the opposite direction with a halting computer blip sequence before finally resolving the two when the dreamy vocals come in, mixing textures as the digital and analog themes intermingle. Deerhoof have reached masterpiece level quality on last years 'Friend Opportunity' and this is just one high point.

I tried to find you a version to hear online, the best I could do was this.
'Cast Off Crown' is playing in the background of this clip, you'll never want to try on anything at the Gap after hearing
this employee's gross-out story.

Cast Off Crown on iTunes

Channel The Will To Find Peppermint Patty

2008-01-17T09:36:00.000-08:00

Songs playing in my head this morning were:
Channel the Will to Find
and
Peppermint Patty by The Owls.

'Channel the Will to Find' is THE healthy drug-free way to kick off serotonin-rich euphoric moments. The only truly cinematic moment I experienced on MySpace was when I clicked on Geoff Herbach's page to leave a message and 'Channel the Will to Find' kicked in. I was instantly rocking and it made me feel Herbach was really cool. This is what MySpace designers' must have hoped that the 'Add Song' feature would do all the time. Normally, I'm startled when some random song starts playing on MySpace, usually at some freak time & volume, and I think 'Lame, lame, lame' as I mouse towards the player controls. I will henceforth make an exception for users that have 'The Owls' and make more 'friend' choices with this in mind.

'Peppermint Patty' is as unique and perfect as a song can be. It has a special place in my heart. I love you Peppermint Patty.

The Owls iTunes

Falun Gong Love Song

2008-01-16T12:54:00.000-08:00

Mick Jones (The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite) and Tony James (Generation X, Sigue Sigue Sputnik) have a band that I just heard about. On the band's blog Tony James answers a question that has come up for them a lot since the release of their first record. They've been posting mp3s for free download on their site for 4 years, so why release a record?

The funny thing is his answer jives with my experience of discovering the band. They only hit my radar after the CD was released and they did interviews and TV to promote it. So the CD is still the motivation for people who control media to write about a band and for record companies to promote a band. They aren't really promoting the band, just the record. I had never thought about that fact before - that the band and the record are different things in the eyes of the sales people.

Falun Gong Love Song is the song I've been listening to today. The title is a good description of the song's content. Mick lets clarity of message trump poetry in a couple spots but I think the song still holds up. If you're gonna write a message song, you should probably make it pensive and give it a hook.

Karakatu, AL

2008-01-16T12:51:00.000-08:00

Last November, I moved from one corner of Matthews Park to the other, which now means to get to my bus in the morning, I need to transverse said park. Pythagorean noted that on a triangle, vertices A, B, and C, it's shorter to travel the hypotenuse than the length of the two other sides. So, I cut straight through the park in the mornings, snow boots crunching through the ice and drifts. Lately it's been as "cold as hell" as my Chinese lab mate would say, and the snow is actually packed and frozen in a way that I can almost float atop the snow icing covering the entirety of the park. But I'm just a little too heavy to stay on top, and so with every step, my feet break through the top of the snow, like a spoon cracking through the burnt top of a freshly-flamed creme brulee. It makes that exact sound too - "crack crack crack crack." Except no moist pudding inside.
When it's cold like this, it makes me feel good and triumphant inside. I recently fell in love with that Stephen Malkmus song "Phantasies," and I sing the first part of it when I'm cracking through the snow. "Woke up early in Karakatu Alaska *crack crack* Put our masks on, and welcome the dawn *crack crack* It's cold as shit! It's always that way/it gets to 99 below..."

Campaigner

2008-01-16T09:51:00.000-08:00

Walking to the store this morning to buy cat food for the hungry cats this morning, the Neil Young song 'Campaigner' popped into my head. I've been playing it with some frequency on the guitar lately because of terrific melody line and chord sequence. It's the kind of song that is an equal pleasure to play as to listen too. A good song to hear on a Wednesday after all the Michigan voting that was going on yesterday.

The story goes that Neil saw a news clip of a teary eyed Richard Nixon entering a hospital visiting his wife Pat, who was in for a serious illness. He then went on board his tour bus and wrote this elegy that seems to acknowledge the common human roots of two itinerant adversaries, the right-wing campaigning politician and a touring hippie superstar...'Roads stretch out like healthy veins' indeed.

The beginning section of 'Campaigner' serves as the chassis for the P. Westerberg 'Skyway', and sounds uncannily familiar to Replacements fans.

The track was only released on 'Decade':
Campaigner on iTunes.

An unreleased version with an extra verse can be found towards the bottom this relatively recent and still active blog post on among the 'bonus tracks' links:
That Tuncheon Thing.

Fantastic Voyage

2008-01-15T08:48:00.000-08:00

Walking to the bus this blue sky morning, I had the lush David Bowie song 'Fantastic Voyage' playing in my head. Last weekend I picked up a used copy of David Bowie's 'Lodger' remastered in Dinkytown, so it's been spinning at my house.

'Fantastic Voyage' features one of Bowie's greatest premier croon deliveries. The apex of the climax is guaranteed to thrill ya! Here is a clip from 2004's live tour:

I saw this tour in the bisected Target Center theater set-up. We snuck down from the nosebleeds, to some unoccupied front row seats, and Bowie delievered 1st class all the way, with full voice and in bloom. One of my first shows ever was the Glass Spider Tour, an sadly unfulfilling experience. 2004 more than made up for it. When he played 'Fantastic Voyage', a relatively rare inclusion; I thought nice, now that's more like it!

We Will Rock You

2008-01-14T20:09:00.000-08:00

While cleaning out my iTunes today...I listened to 'We Will Rock You'. Written by Brian May, the worlds #1 rock anthem consists entirely of hand claps and foot-stomps recorded in an old church and a guitar solo played through a tiny amp. Strangely appropriate...

I saw the remnants of Queen a couple yrs ago when they did a tour with Paul Rodgers of Bad Company (whose work I am only familiar with through the Replacement bootleg 'The Shit Hits the Fans'). Got a heavily discounted ticket through a ornary scalper; they seem to get that way when selling at a big loss. But it was a grand show none the less, as Brian May is the ultimate Arena Rock guitar player..check this vid clip I took from the actual performance of a Brian May guitar solo...
...
Seeing 1/2 of Queen was like viewing the Parthenon...a grand ruin that retained some of the majesty of its former glory when viewed at twilight from the right angle. The guitar tones were sheer ecstasy, but of course... no Freddy Mercury. My attendance was driven by my rock anthropology quest and I gleened what I could from the studying rocks below. The set was peppered with a few Bad Company hits too. Seeing 'Feel Like Makin' Love' played through that classic May guitar set up was f'kin funny and awesome, an ultimate guilty pleasure.

What makes Brain May cool:
- built his own guitar, the same one he still uses
- looks (and talks) like Issac Newton
- completed his work for a PhD in Astrophysics this year, 30 years after he was interrupted by his rock band's success
- and most importantly, his playing sings with sweet resonance in an arena like no one else's... makes you feel like an 8-year old seeing 'Star Wars' for the first time.

We Will Rock You/Champions @ Live Aid

Type 'greatest rock performance ever' into google and see what comes up.

It's the ...

2008-01-03T13:05:00.001-08:00

Ear of the Tyger

MPLS Wild Things blog about the songs that pop into their heads.

It's the thrill of the fight!