Given more hours in the day, I'd spend them exerting as much effort on hearing previous years' music as I do the new stuff. Take Paul Levinson's Twice Upon a Rhyme , as great a reason as any (and better than most) not to forget about 1972. A lost psych-folk classic that rubs elbows with Tim Hardin and the Zombies, it's the lone effort of a songwriter who for better or worse went on to become a college professor (and father to one of America's best young music writers ). The dewy eyed melodies of "Raincheck" and "Today [...]
Instead of a traditional Sunday Mix Tape this week, I'm going to highlight more great albums which were released in 2010. The one caveat here is that these are all albums which were reissued this past year. Or last year. Weird…two days ago I was saying "this past year" and now I have to say "last year" to not be considered retarded. There were plenty of great albums reissued in 2010. And a lot of them were more modern re-pressings, which I don't care for at all (really? Another limited-edition Group re-press? Ugh!). I'm [...]
• Ever the sillybilly, Hornet Montana sent the following story to my attention this week: "Mercury 'turns' wetland birds such as ibises homosexual." I think it was a statement about the shape of Swan Fungus as 2010 draws to a close. Maybe Hornet just thought it was a silly headline. Either way, I didn't really read the article. I wonder if the Mercury in question is the chemical element or the planet. You know how in astrology planets in different alignments can affect someone's behavior? I don't know much about astrology but I know "when Mercury is in retrograde" is [...]
What the fuck is pop music, anyway? I mean, I know it's short for popular music, and I know in terms of marketing it's usually geared towards a younger audience, but how do you distinguish pop from rock? What's pop-rock, what's pop and what's rock? What about pop punk or psychedelic pop? It's fucking confusing, I tell you. So this week I've asked some friends and associates to suggest to me what they would consider to be the best pop song most casual music fans have never heard. It sounded like an easy enough question, but I ended up with [...]
Ok, so here are some thoughts I have been mulling over this morning. I was up until 5am unable to sleep (nothing to do with LOST, this was physiological) so I had time to read some other blogs - like the one I emailed about this morning - and see how they related to this "Flashbacks and Flashsides are not real!" theory. My friend Paul Levinson wrote, "Any one of the characters could of course be lying to him or herself. Nothing even implausible about that. But interlocking flashbacks' reciprocal coincidences, like Sayid's and Kate's stepfather's, reduce the [...]
Sorry I forgot to post this on Sunday! RULES for uninitiated noobs : With roughly 100MB of webspace, I give birth to a weekly Mix Tape to be deposited on your iPods or Zunes or Kingklangs or whatever the industry is currently pushing on you. Sometimes there will be themes that link all the songs together, other times I'll just throw songs at a wall (not literally) and see what sticks. This week includes a couple live cuts (Will Oldham, Yndi Halda), and a bunch of randomly selected tunes. The final track was recorded by [...]
Tomorrow we'll return to our regularly scheduled updates. You know, rants, interviews, lists and stuff. Antics. Antics too. We'll get started with some good shit tomorrow. Until then, enjoy your Sunday mix tape. RULES for uninitiated noobs : With roughly 100MB of webspace, I give birth to a weekly Mix Tape to be deposited on your iPods or Zunes or Kingklangs or whatever the industry is currently pushing on you. Sometimes there will be themes that link all the songs together, other times I'll just throw songs at a wall (not literally) and see what sticks. [...]
The Rawking Refuses To Stop!
Swan Fungus
Music Singles Chart #109
Family of the Year - "Diversity"
I’ll Just Leave This Here #161
Young Jeezy – Go (Ft. YG & E-40)
