Bela Tar Tel Aviv I n the past few years I've been working on my Bela Tar project and on several film scores. I also have a bunch of trees outside my house that need to be taken care of (pecans, oranges..), so I've been doing that. Last thing I did was a soundtrack for a Zambian film, along with Mark Cunningham, a great trumpet & bass player from Barcelona, and now I'm writing again for a new Bela Tar album. [...]
Velvet Davenport - "Warmy Personal Routine" MP3/download The Chameleons - "Perfume Garden" MP3/download Reading Rainbow - "Wasting Time" MP3/download Normally posting MP3s is more of a perfunctory thing for yer favorite Gumshoe, something I do because I know that's what the KIDZ expect and yadda-yadda, but I'm super-ecstatic about this lineup for two reasons: One, [...]
The newly re-energized "greatest band you've never heard of" really needs to make a new record. Musical ensemble - United States - Metro Areas - Music - Concert
crocodiles - all my hate and my hexes are for you electric sunset - infinity avenue palpitation - wait/fall/leave the chameleons - p.s. goodbye
To the guy who came into my job today and asked about me, I apologize for insinuating that you might be a creepy stalker. Just kidding! The very cool and very talented Isreal - who is responsible for the fantastic blog The Cargo Culte - visited me at work today and we got to shoot the shit for a few minutes. He's created some very lovely print editions of his blog, bound and packaged with a CD of great music. I was very impressed. It served as a reminder that I should do more to expand the horizons [...]
After dozens of hand-crafted releases, Ariel Pink has emerged with an exceptional album that polishes up his lo-fi production values without sacrificing the ingenious songwriting and domineering personality that brought him acclaim in the first place. This efficient prioritization results in one of the year's finest albums.
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the spirit of blogging (also known as the not-quite journalistic arts). As we bid adieu to another beautiful day (except for the parts that sucked), let us remember that there are more beautiful days ahead of us (ones that don't include booze, and do include massive amounts of alcohol and naked women), and that in the end we will all...I don't know, perish in a fiery crash? Yeah, that sounds about right. Or at least that's how I see myself going as of my last "I saw myself die last night!" vivid [...]
Ariel Pink is one of the most prominent causes of the recent "chillwave" movement, where recent artists like Washed Out, Neon Indian, and Memory Cassette have paid subtle tribute to Pink's incredible past work. This introduction should hopefully make sorting through his extensive discography much easier. One of this decade's most essential artists deserves no less.
Eric Littman is a complete unknown at this point. Little more than a paragraph of information is available online about his project, Phantom Power, and I actually do not know how it got in my hands in the first place. It could have put on my hard drive yesterday or last year... I'm not really [...]
December is almost over. Across all forms of media, the next week will be filled with cloying fits of nostalgia, hindsight-enriched wistfulness, and even some good-old-fashioned navel-gazing. Each Friday this month Swan Fungus has concluded the week with a new year-end list. Last week was The Top Negative Reader Comments, and before that was Top Ten Top Ten Lists of 2009. Next week: The Top 100 Albums of 2008. Stay tuned! I thought last year was an insane year for deaths. I mean, seriously, almost my entire top ten list died before the month of March ended. That [...]
Wanna know what the earliest tip-off was that something was amiss in my Mom's home upon first inspection last week? There was a vinyl record out of its sleeve among a stack of books and paperwork on the kitchen table that doubled as my mom's desk in a way. There it was, just slid into the pile of stuff. A naked LP. I went on yesterday about my mom's musical inclinations, but my dad who wasn't a musician was a bit of an audiophile in the era of reel to reel tapes and LPs. And man, [...]
Lauren Devine has officially made me obsessed with The Chameleons. She went to see them last night while I was on my way back from a weekend in Pennsylvania. She said everyone there looked like my ex-boyfriend, which means they were all HOT GOTH DUDES. The worst thing about being unemployed is never being able to afford to go to the good shows. A press pass can only get me so far! Here is a video on YouTube of the band playing Camden Palace in 1985. The Chameleons [...]
"Not to many hours from this hour... so long! The storm comes, or is it just another shower? Artist: The Chameleons UK Album: Script of the Bridge Song: Swamp Thing
MSN and Men's Health have teamed up to create a list of "18 Things A Grown Man Should Never Have" . And I think I could do better. Much better. I am, after all, the purveyor of one of the Internet's leading Top Ten-centric websites. Why I haven't received offers from various mainstream magazines to pen original Top (blank) lists is beyond me. I'm, like, the voice of a generation. But like any wunderkind, my work won't be appreciated until long after I've expired. Also, I could never work for a mainstream magazine, because I've got integrity. [...]
The Bell Genre: Indie / Pop / Alternative From: Malmo/Stockholm, Sweden Swedish glum rockers The Bell take me back to those distant days of my youth bequiffed and clad in a dead man's overcoat. Their reverb drenched, hazy shimmering neo psychedelia and delicate fronds of sound is eerily reminscent of 80s post punk scouse rockers [...]
Greetings from the land of the ill. I made the brutal mistake of rushing to kill the intense burning sensation which accompanies eating hot peppers with a cold glass of milk before remembering that my body cannot digest lactose. I feel like I'm on the brink of an terrible vomit-filled evening. Too bad, I was having a really good day. I hung out in Pasadena for a while, and then almost fell asleep in my notebook trying to write a short story. Have you ever tried to write something while half-conscious? I'll tell you right now, I started on page [...]
Be Gentle With Me – The Boy Least Likely To It's always nice to come back to an old album you'd forgotten about; especially one this joyful. I came across The Boy Least Likely To rather early in my musical 'enlightenment' and they were probably my first foray into the tweeish side of indie music. Tonight I Have To Leave It – Shout Out Louds I've been enjoying the Shout Out Louds of late, though not as much as I'd have hoped. They seem to be sitting just [...]
Here's an exception to YSKOD's usual mid-90s indie pop/rock fare. I only recently learned of The Chameleons via Nancy's excellent indie pop blog I'm Not Always So Stupid. I love their 1983 debut album; it probably sounds as hip now as it did then, thanks to the popularity of bands like Interpol, Editors, and The National. The two songs I'm sharing also bring a welcome whiff of 80s bands like Big Country, Flock of Seagulls, and Psychedelic Furs. They also help push the YSKOD agenda--that it can be fun to track and enjoy the lineage of indie music. [...]
B esides giving rise to punk and new-wave bands, the era of 1977-1987 also birthed the bands that formed the foundation of "alternative" rock like Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Husker Du, and many more. There was so much innovation and change during this time period that just wasn't accepted by the mainstream media of the day. This era also spans a time period large enough that includes my uncle's college years and my first exposure to the music that would eventually change my life. I find it interesting that this is the music that made most [...]
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Can You See the Sunset
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