Expectations are a funny thing. On the one hand, they create an unnecessary added pressure to the work you’re trying to do, often clouding your vision. On the other, it’s interesting that people care enough about what you’re doing to have certain feelings about it and possibly try and affect the outcome. While discussing ideas for Retrospectus No. 3, my friend Jacob expressed concern when I said the next one might not relate to me personally; that I was going to highlight two records I felt have been neglected. He felt that I had set the precedent that [...]
Expectations are a funny thing. On the one hand, they create an unnecessary added pressure to the work you’re trying to do, often clouding your vision. On the other, it’s interesting that people care enough about what you’re doing to have certain feelings about it and possibly try and affect the outcome. While discussing ideas for Retrospectus No. 3, my friend Jacob expressed concern when I said the next one might not relate to me personally; that I was going to highlight two records I felt have been neglected. He felt that I had set the precedent that [...]
Who knew that so many great songs start with the word "Hey" in the title of it. Total excuse for a quickie playlist but here's a few attention getters to fill your brainspace when you're trying to make a point or can't remember the words you were trying to put together - Hey buys you time while you're try figure out what you are going to say. When you feel you've been cheated out of something you deserved. When somebody steps on your toe and you scream "Hey mother F'er!". When somebody cuts you off in traffic and you also [...]
Wat betreft albums kom ik dit jaar niet veel verder dan 5 stuks die ik van voor tot achter geslaagd vind. Dat komt waarschijnlijk deels door mijn meer kritisch geworden oor in de loop der jaren als ook door het enigszins povere aanbod van 2010. Om het feest toch nog compleet te maken heb ik een Spotify lijst gemaakt van 12 tracks die me erg blij maakten dit jaar. De 5 uitverkoren albums dan nog: 1. Tame Impala - Innerspeaker Melodieuze, volle psychedelische sound waar ik dit jaar maar geen genoeg van kon [...]
Ho ho ho, bitches, The Decibel Tolls Holiday Mixer 2010 is up in here making magic and explainin' magnets. Some of these jams have been featured on previous mixers, and some are new to the blog holiday celebration. Per usual, we offer both our traditional Xmas collection, as well as our DMXmas mix later in the month. However, it's proven difficult coordinating a time to meet between Lana, our cat Ike, DMX, and myself to get some shots at the Sears Portrait Studio, and if we don't have a nice photo to go with our holiday [...]
I posted this a whole 5 years ago so figured it deserved a second airing given its redemptive powers at this time of year. Of course it made complete sense that power poppeteers Grandaddy record a Christmas song but who could have guessed that they’d make awkwardly long, imperfectly sown lyrics sound so ridiculously cute (don’t answer me)? ‘Alan Parsons In A Winter Wonderland’ appeared on one of the best contemporary festive collections called ‘It’s A Cool, Cool Christmas’ which fetches quite the pretty penny on ebay these days. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wish they reformed all within the [...]
The Treecast is so named because we purchased and decorated our Christmas tree this afternoon. It is an incoherent mess of all sorts of shite, stupid garish baubles, a weird peacock thingy and some foolish attempts at being tasteful which have been utterly overwhelmed by the utter cack which surrounds them. My parents always did seriously tasteful trees actually, so I would imagine they will be downright ashamed of the half-arsed mess we have managed to create. Actually, my dad is the world's biggest Grinch, so he won't give a shite, but my mum might be silently disappointed. [...]
Oooh, awesomeyawesomeness!! I interviewed Jason Lytle in May 2005, prior to the release of his debut solo record Yours Truly, the Commuter . He told me back then that he had an urge to release, and I paraphrase a little here, 'a big old mess, littered with half-finished thoughts, experimentation and imperfections' . I hesitate to proclaim loudly and confidently that this is that very album, but the way Lytle himself describes it suggests that it quite probably is: "Here is this new CD. It's not a proper "full length [...]
To all the doubters and haters who thought I gave up, I'm still riding the allsort-wave. So suck one. Yeah you heard me. "CAN WE GET MUCH HIGH-ER? OH WOAH HO - SO HIGH - OH WOAH HO". Memories of news of the final death-spazz of the economy will forevermore be weirdly associated with Kanye West's bombastic new album. E.g. the RTE six one news turned down in my brother's front room on Saturday evening, and [...]
I've been nonstop at work for at least the last 5 or 6 weeks and probably stretching back this whole year, as my workload has doubled through downsizing at the company but my security level has just about halved thanks to the aforementioned seemingly constant layoffs that are happening both in my company and across the country. I'm sure most of my readers with jobs feel the same insecurity/nonstop pressure and I'm not real sure what the hell we can do about it, if anything. Companies are reaping record profits, the stock market is soaring, but the employees they hire [...]
In a year that's seen chill-wave-no-wave-witch-house -glo-fi-lo-fi (delete as applicable) erupt over the internets like a virus (before eventually imploding in on itself), one band have remained a constant - cruising steadily throughout the crud, Yuck - masters of their own destiny - have set their own pace whilst casually overshadowing whatever *scene* is in vogue in any given month. By now, we know all about their nineties inspired college jams that soar with ease; filled to the brim with melodic pop hooks and blissed out guitar breaks. But underneath it all, what music actually makes them [...]
How Grandaddy never became successful is beyond me. Great tunes; intelligent lyrics about love, life and the struggle between nature and technology; a charmingly unpretentious band who gave the distinct impression they were just a bunch of mates who got together to form a band whilst skateboarding, all wrapped up with a slightly shambolic air of second-hand guitars and analogue synths. They sounded just different enough to be unique without being too challenging. Yet the world wasn’t quite ready for their tales of dogs, AM radio stations, broken-down robots and office workers gone astray on activity day [...]
grandaddy - "sikh in a baja vw bug" (download) My favorite song from Grandaddy 's 2002 release Concrete Dunes . This record was not officially approved by Grandaddy , and was put together by their label at the time, Will Records. It consists primarily of their release The Broken Down Comforter Collection . Apparently, Grandaddy is somewhat against the cover art, title and tracklist of this release, but with that being said, it's still a great collection of songs. [...]
At a certain point during tonight's Midlake show, my mind entirely wandered inside itself. Lost inside the lulling tones of 'Acts of Man', I started an inner conversation about the nature of criticism with regard to live music. To whit: just where does objectivity stand? Am I reviewing Midlake? The entire show? The sound? Or am I reviewing my emotional response to these elements? Is a review primarily of a show or of my experience therein? Should there be a balance? And if so, please tell me, dear reader, what the fuck it is? [...]
We can't cite you chapter and verse everything that multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and Boston scene stalwart Greg Lyon has done in the last five years or so that we've been aware of his work. But we can tell you that his forthcoming solo set Nowhere Near Poughkeepsie -- whose songs are characterized in promotional materials as stuff that wasn't a good fit for the many, many bands he's played with -- is terrific, from the Grandaddy -esque title track to the stripped strut of the trebly rocker "Trainwreck." The 11-song record, largely recorded in a practice [...]
Hopewell mound from Ohio I was all excited, after Hopewell's management asked us to write about their upcoming show with the Dandy Warhols this Sunday, to talk about the Native American Hopewell tradition . What a cool source for a band name, I thought. The Hopewell tradition spanned societies of the Eastern United States, from 200-500 CE, and was a sort of pax romana . A period of extensive trade throughout the area and, anthropologists suspect, significant peace. Plus, who doesn't love the cool mysterious mounds the societies left behind? [...]
Filed under: News , Holy Hell Admiral Radley is, in many ways, a quintessential California band. The all-star project features members of Grandaddy -- a now-defunct group, forever associated with Modesto -- and Earlimart , who took their name from an actual town between Bakersfield and Fresno. Released earlier this year, Admiral Radley's debut album is called 'I Heart California,' so, yeah... they love California. Apparently, too, they even named the band after one of its lesser-known legends. "We've been on [...]
Our Top 100 Tracks of the Decade lists (see sidebar on the right to peruse them) were epic undertakings. No small amount of poring, sorting, listening, re-listening, second-guessing and indiscriminate ranking went into it, and what came out was wonderful. Was it perfect? Definitely not. First off, Amanda and I didn't have identical lists, so OBVIOUSLY [Read Full Post...]
![[Introducing] – Calm Palm Vapor](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/2817592_lg.jpg)
Shoegaze with a hint of Motown. That's how Calm Palm Vapor labeled themselves in their email to me last week, and if for no other reason than because I'd never seen those two words together in a sentence before, I gave them a listen, and you know? They're kind of onto something there. Personally I'd put them somewhere in between here and the Sun, occupying a soundscape that's at times reminiscent of Air's cosmos-inspired synths, percussion weened from The Stone Roses' first album, and melodies that in some kind of fucked up hybrid between Grandaddy and Super Furry [...]
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