YES.

dear world,

this is nina hagen.

virtual crowdsurfing

I just read Amanda Palmer's (of the Dresden Dolls) new blog. I think you should, too. Its her take on the state of the music industry, and is further proof of why i think she's The Shit.

http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/212321239/virtual-crowdsurfing

The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

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i'm pretty sure that head is coming out of a vagina?

but look!

it's new music, which i'm uploading from my apartment! amazing.

i've really been enjoying this album so far. i don't think it will appeal to as wide an audience as say 'at war with the mystics', but that's okay with me. embryonic feels very psychedelic, and goes to a lot of different and new places for the lips. the bbc even said this album "approximates the sound of early-70s miles davis playing the work of yes" (i personally dont know if i agree with that.. but i guess it's up to you to decide, eh?). what's fun about this album is that it serves as great background music, as well as wonderful music to sit down and focus on listening to. also, karen o and mgmt are both featured on a few of the 18 tracks. rad.

anyways, i'd highly suggest picking this album up. it's good stuff. press that button before it gets taken down!

here's an article by nick hornby, the author of high fidelity. i'm at rao's in amherst and they're playing radiohead/zeppelin/dylan. gooooodshow.

The thrill of it all

Nick Hornby used to find record shops scarily intimidating (remember High Fidelity?), but the advent of MP3 blogs has liberated music fans everywhere. Writing exclusively for OMM, the author reveals why ...

My first novel, High Fidelity, was published in 1995, and shortly afterwards, I embarked upon my first American book tour. I took with me a Discman, and 15 or 20 carefully chosen CDs in a wallet, although I bought lots of others while I was there – CDs by bands I'd never heard of, and wouldn't have been able to buy at home, recommended to me by people who came to readings, or by journalists at the end of interviews. There was always a thriving, intimidating independent music store just a short walk from my hotel, in whichever city I was visiting. At signings, people gave me lovingly made compilation tapes, occasionally demo tapes of their bands, or their friends' bands, and sometimes bootleg tapes of shows by artists they thought I'd like. Towards the end of the tour I no longer had room for it all, and I had to leave little piles of cassette boxes next to the waste-bins in my hotel rooms. (I couldn't bear to put them in the bins. I wasn't throwing them away; I was leaving them behind. There was a difference.) If you look at the above picture carefully, and compare it to your average 2009 book tour, you should be able to spot the differences. Even spoken-word recommendations look quaint now.

Back then, the future of music didn't look particularly interesting to me. I don't mean that music itself seemed boring, although I was 38 years old, and I felt like I'd heard a lot of the mid-90s before. I mean that neither I nor anybody else I knew spent any time thinking about how our consumption of music might change. How could it? There wasn't much to it, surely? OK, someone might come up with another format, something that might sweep away the compact disc just as the CD had replaced vinyl. But whatever it was, all you could do was buy it – which meant walking down to Our Price, or a local independent store staffed by people who looked as though they'd rather have their heads stuck inside Thurston Moore's amp than speak to you. I certainly couldn't have imagined writing a novel which is in part about how we relate to music in the 21st century. Like most of us, I believed that this relationship would be a version of the relationship we all knew and loved, with a couple of extra volume knobs on.

In the year that High Fidelity was published, a new CD shop opened in my neighbourhood and rejuvenated my listening habits. The shop did well, initially, and I spent a lot of time in there, buying pretty much whatever the owners told me to buy; they were very clever, it seemed to me, in targeting the ageing (or perhaps, more precisely, ex-) hipsters of north London, people who were growing sick of their REM albums but didn't know what else to buy. They sold hundreds of copies of Buena Vista Social Club, and a lot of tasteful trip-hop – which, as Simon Reynolds pointed out, was "merely a form of gentrification". But then, what are you supposed to do if you're becoming gentrified? Pretend it isn't happening? Yes, Portishead sold a lot of albums to people who wanted to listen to music that meant something without waking up their children, but that's not necessarily a desire that deserves a sneer. Keeping in touch with the things that help us feel alive – music, books, movies, even the theatre, if, mysteriously, you are that way inclined – becomes a battle, and one that many of us lose, as we get older; I don't think enough of our cultural pundits, people who write about that stuff for a living, fully understand this. It's one thing to have an opinion on Little Boots remixes if you earn your living hanging about in cyberspace; quite another if you're a full-time teacher with three kids. My friend's CD shop performed a valuable service to those whose shopping and browsing and listening time was rationed by circumstance, people who had the occasional five minutes on a Saturday morning to check out, and sometimes even buy, what everyone else was listening to.

You'll know what happened to the shop, because it happened to everyone else's shop, too. Illegal downloading wouldn't have been a factor here – the punters were too old and, for the most part, too well-heeled for all that. But Amazon started selling CDs for less than my friends could buy them for, and eventually even north London's late adopters worked out that one-clicking didn't take much effort. The trouble with this, of course, is that you're shopping in a vacuum, however many times you're told by some robot you don't know that if you like this then you'll love that. You're feeding off nothing, apart from recommendations in broadsheet newspapers and magazines such as this one – and we've all been burned like that. After my local CD shop closed down, I was getting ready for a musical life that turned in on itself, before dying slowly from malnutrition. Any piece of music becomes drained of meaning and excitement if you listen too much to it, but a three-minute pop song isn't going to last you a lifetime. Popular music needs to keep flowing. If the fresh supplies stop, it's you that becomes stagnant.

It took me longer than it should have done to work out that the internet is one giant independent record shop – thousands and thousands of cute little independent record shops, anyway – and they don't actually charge you for the music they stock. The MP3 blogs that stretch for miles and miles, as far as the eye can see, down that stretch of the net that isn't reserved for pornography, are staffed by enthusiastic and likable young men and women who absolutely don't want to rip the artists off: they are always careful to post links to iTunes and Amazon, and the songs they put on their sites are for sampling purposes only. (For the most part, they are encouraged to do so by the artists and their labels, who take out adverts on the more popular sites, and are clearly sending advance copies of albums to the bloggers.) It works for me. I listen, and then I buy what I like, because owning music is still important to me. If the music I like stays out there in cyberspace, as it does on Spotify, then somehow it cannot indicate character and taste in the same way, although I doubt that younger generations will feel like this, and good luck to them.

But it's easy. Look at Hype Machine (hypem.com) to begin with: in the top right-hand corner of the site, you'll see a list of the top five most-blogged artists, so you will get a sense of what's going on out there (or in there, if you are a literal-minded soul). The search engine will offer you a chance to listen to these artists, and, in the process, you'll get the chance to discover your favourite virtual record store, because every single one of those links you see will take you to a different MP3 blog. My favourites are I Am Fuel, You Are Friends, Largehearted Boy, Aquarium Drunkard, When You Awake, and Funky16Corners. (Some of those names are indicative of a generosity of spirit that one doesn't always associate with the internet.) And some of these post songs from new bands, and some post scratched old vinyl funk records, and if you spend an hour messing about you'll find 20 or 30 great songs you never knew before. In other words: there's no excuse.

Juliet, Naked is in part about how a middle-aged man devotes a large chunk of his life to keeping alive the work of a long-forgotten 80s singer-songwriter; he runs a messageboard, posts essays online, and virtually lives in a virtual world, talking to people he wouldn't ever have met 10 years ago. Perhaps one of the paradoxes of music on the internet is that it's perfect for the old folks. If you need to find set lists for every show Rory Gallagher ever played, I'm sure there's some chap with nothing better to do who is taking care of it right now. But more importantly, you need never again feel as though the pop life is drifting away from you – indeed, the anonymity and user-friendliness of the MP3 blogs mean that one feels emboldened to walk into even the scariest-looking website in the full confidence that nobody will laugh at you.

I'll be off on a US book tour again soon, to promote a novel that is, in part, about how the world has changed since 1995. I'll be taking with me a small black box, no bigger than a packet of cigarettes, containing every piece of music I've ever loved. And a lot of that music – more than I could possibly have imagined five years ago, when I was prepared, reluctantly, to pull up the drawbridge – was made very recently. And no, I don't know how it will all pan out, who will pay the artists to make their lovely or ugly or scary music in a world that's increasingly beginning to expect everything for free. (My best guess is that being in a band will become a version of national service or the Peace Corps; something you do for a couple of years before knuckling down to a proper job. And the London Symphony Orchestra won't appear on as many rock albums as they used to.) All I know is that if you love music, and you have a curious mind, there has never been a better time to be alive.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/sep/06/nick-hornby-mp3-record-shops

Bill Hicks - Rant in E-Minor

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i really don't like most stand up comedy. i love Bill Hicks.

you should probably download this album.

p.s. i just moved to MA, and i don't have internet at my apartment yet. but that will be fixed in the next week! pizza party!

so once that happens, more posts will happen. cross my heart and all that shit. also, the lack of posts has a lot to do with the fact that there really isn't anything out there that i feel is worth posting. at least as far as new releases go. maybe i'm wrong. prove it to me.

it's kind of cool to see where you all hail from. i've been getting a lot of stumbleuponers here.

feel free to say hi and request things!

RIP, Les Paul

Pure genius. Probably unmatched by anyone in the music industry. What a loss.

Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era [Disk 1]

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this the first disk of a crazy 60's psychrock compilation. every song was new to me upon listening. i'll upload the second disk if i find you guys like this stuff. do it upppp

p.s. remember that one time i was gonna post a lot of albums because i have high speed internet? well it turns out that was all a lie. the internet company called us and said ooops, we were sorta joking with you, woodsy folk! sooo that sucks. BUT i'll be moving to mass. in about a week, so then i'll go crazy on you kids with the posts. true story.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - From Below

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i guess i'm feeling the scruffy bearded men bands today (and every day)

these cats are a ten piece band, maybe sort of the folk-rock version of arcade fire.

this music makes you want to bust out your bowl, pile on some wood for a blazing campfire, and invite 20 friends over for a sing along. we've got feel good grooves, here. i highly recommend checkin' on and jivin' 'round to these tracks.

Delta Spirit - Ode To Sunshine

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i think this video from La Blogotheque can tell you all you need to know. here's 'trashcan':

for fans of yeasayer, dr. dog, blitzen trapper, portugal. the man

listen, plz.

The Builders and The Butchers - Salvation Is A Deep Dark Well

download here

The Builders and The Butchers sound, to an extent, like the love child of Colin Meloy and Australia's The Red Paintings. You can hear a bit of that influence here; Chris Funk, guitarist for the Decemberists, produced and played on this record. Their use of instruments is wide, and despite the similarities to the previously mentioned musicians, they still retain an individual sound that has me tappin' my feet more than a little. I highly suggest giving this a listen, especially if you're a Decemberists fan (but even if you aren't).

From Paste Mag, who have named the B&B's their band of the week:
The Builders And The Butchers' musical output is something of a Pentecostal throw-down—the musical underpinnings are reminiscent of bluegrass, but the performances are raw and unschooled, with Sollee in particular throwing off a maniacally ecclesiastical sort of energy. Imagine the Violent Femmes with all the goofy irony cast aside, and you’ll get a sense of the dark, sparkling, Leadbelly-like terrain covered by death-fixated epics such as “Bottom of the Lake” and “The Gallows.” Thick with characters who bear more in common with Steinbeck’s dustbowl downtrodden than their contemporary counterparts, the band's songwriting is almost entirely instinctive.

i ain't no bad apple

sooo... i don't know what's going on but blogger keeps removing my posts. that's pretty damn annoying. stop that, blogger.

Together Through Life - Bob Dylan

download here

i like this album. i do. but when did bob dylan get so OLD? i mean... this stuff sounds like old man music. it's got a nice crisp 1950's bluesy feel about it. yet i can't help but think that dylan is gonna croak midway through "this dream of you". it almost reminds me a bit of cohen's later stuff, vocally, that gravelly i smoked two packs a day for thirty years sound. its sexy. now excuse me while i go pop a viagra.

sometimes weezer is fantastic

like when they cover MGMT and Lady Gaga AT THE SAME TIME.
this shit is awesome.

kids & poker face, y'all:

here's the deal, y'all

i have approximately A SHITTON of music that i would like to upload to this blog for everyone. however, i live in the boonies and only get satellite internet, which means i can't really upload anything since we have a restricted bandwith.

BUT
starting tuesday, we will have high-speed-like-the-rest-of-the-world internet. this is the most exciting news EVER, you understand.
so
next week, expect a lot of posts to make up for the lack of posts this month.

peace.

Bibio - Ambivilance Avenue

download here

this album is truly unique. i'm not too sure how to describe it, so i'll let pitchfork do the talking (who also gave it a "Best Album" distinction). but i'd try this stuff out. it's pretty darn cool.

pitchfork:
The title track weaves bouncing vocals through crisp guitar licks and bouncy flutes; "All the Flowers" is a fey folk gem; the dreamy "Haikuesque (When She Laughs)" is better indie-rock than many indie-rockers are making these days. Summery anthem "Lovers' Carvings" coasts on crunchy, gleaming riffs and upbeat woodblocks, and the autumnal "The Palm of Your Wave" is simply haunting. "Jealous of Roses" sets lustrous funk riffs dancing between the stereo channels as Bibio belts out a surprisingly effective Sly-Stone-in-falsetto impersonation. "Fire Ant" spikes the loping soul of J Dilla with the stroboscopic vocal morsels of the Field; "Sugarette" wheezes and fumes like a Flying Lotus contraption. The music feels both spontaneous and precise, winding in complex syncopation around the one-beat, with subtle filter and tempo tweaks, and careful juxtapositions of texture (see the arid, throttled voices scraping against the sopping-wet chimes of "S'vive"). Many songs taper off into ambient passages that have actual gravity, gluing the far-flung genres together. It's the kind of seamless variety, heady but visceral, that few electronic musicians who aren't Four Tet have achieved.

this is not just electronica stuff, y'all. it's almost unclassifiable. some people have dubbed it folktronica. ch-ch-check it out.