Happy 40th, Mr. Smith. And yes, ECEU is officially back, though at a different place and in a slightly different way. It won't be what it was - I just don't have enough time, still - but it will be something, and I will put love into it. You can find the brand new Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands here . So, that's it for this old place (though it will remain up), and for blogger (tumblr is so much easier and what [...]
Well, I've been away from ECEU for a little over three months now, and I'm seriously toying with the notion of jumping back in. I think I was able to get enough distance from the site over these past few months to realize that, hassles aside, it was something I did genuinely enjoy doing most of the time, and, while I have no doubts the site can't run forever, I do think I pulled the plug rather hastily on something that had been a labor of love for nearly four years, for misguided reasons and frustrations. I don't [...]
Somebody brought up a good point in the comments, an oversight I had made when closing things down around here: namely, now that ECEU is gone, where should you go (if you weren't already) to find/hear/read about the kinds of music I featured here over the past four years. And, never being one to turn down a chance to share great and wonderful things with people, I knew I had to make one last post to point all of you in some new directions. The following sites - and I tried to narrow them down as best [...]
Thanks to all of you who made running this site for the past three and a half years worth all the effort, energy, and time I put into it. Hopefully, I've introduced you to some quality music in that time, and you, in turn, have shared good music with others. It only works if it's a circle, after all. Don't worry about me, I'll keep listening and talking and thinking about my favorite music, just not to an audience of strangers, at least not for a long while. I might show up again down [...]
D espite the fact that I tend to find the music that I like far more than it ever finds me, I still get sent a whole lot of CDs each and every week from labels and PR people. You'd think they might want to save the effort and postage: a quick look at my site would reveal rather obviously that I don't spend much time on unsolicited music. In fact, there's a fairly direct route that goes from my mailbox to the kitchen counter to the computer to the trashcan. Which is not to [...]
One Art - Elizabeth Bishop The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my [...]
Neko Case and Will Sheff in Concert (full concert stream, via NPR ) Lisa Hannigan Sews Together a Solo Debut (NPR) On "I Don't Know," for which a music video was commissioned, Hannigan sings, 'I don't know if you can swim / If the sea is any draw for you.' "It's that moment where you see the turn of somebody's elbow or a book peeking out of someone's bag on the train," Hannigan says. "And — I do this anyway — I sort of construct [...]
Let's Hear It for the Boy (Footloose cover) - Doveman (super highly recommended) Everywhere (Fleetwood Mac cover) - Vampire Weekend (live) Corrina, Corrina (Bob Dylan cover) - Conor Oberst (live) Roll Another Number (Neil Young cover) - Okkervil River (live)
The best jazz guitarist of all time, showing you how it's done. And keep in mind, he was able to play like this with the full use of only two fingers on his left hand. "Body and Soul" - Django Reinhardt (1937)
Heeeeee's baaaack. Never one content to sit around and rest on his laurels, Conor Oberst (along with his Mystic Valley Band) has already recorded a follow-up to last year's self-titled debut. The track "Slowly (Oh So Slowly)" was released as a free stream on the band's website a couple of weeks ago, and just today they made a different song, "Nikorette", available for free download... "Nikorette" - Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band The new record, Outer South , will be out May 5th on Merge Records. [...]
I t was fifteen years ago today, April 5th 1994. He was dead. By his own hand. In his own house. An electrician found him a few days later. He was 27. Even then, once his tragic final act had been discovered, the end of an era was being pronounced: grunge was dead. Putting aside the fact that grunge was never alive, was never much more than a media construct in the first place, it still felt like a Big Event, like Something Important Has Happened. For a generation [...]
The End of Verse? (Newsweek) A recent NEA report finds fiction reading on the rise, while readership of poetry has dropped significantly. Is an art form dying? Author Richard Ford: Chance is a Fine Thing (The Guardian) Of course, it's always my wish that readers do with my books what Walter Benjamin thought readers should do with stories - make use of them. An interview with Michael Chabon [...]
Previously featured in this series: True Love Will Find You in the End Flume God Only Knows Paper Planes Such Great Heights Do You Realize? Buckets of Rain I Want You Back Chelsea Hotel Lua The Whole Wide World Borderline I'm So Lonesome I [...]
It hurts me that I don't like this very much. I'm not giving up hope for the entire record ( OK Bear , Enigk's third solo record, which will be released on 5/12/09), but this is miles away from the stuff that I fell in love with all those years ago , back when Jeremy Enigk could do no wrong. I listened to SDRE records (and his first solo record on Sub Pop) on constant repeat in high school and college, obsessed over the lyrics with other fans on email list-servs and websites devoted to the band/him, [...]
La Blogotheque's series of "Take-Away Shows" are consistently brilliant - and this brand new one, in particular, is like going to music heaven: Sigur Ros - Við spilum endalaust - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo . Little by little the room empties, the remaining diners drag out the final moments of their lunch, and then the drumsticks arrive. The environment is tense, but they [...]
The Unfinished: David Foster Wallace's struggle to surpass Infinite Jest (New Yorker) The sadness over Wallace's death was also connected to a feeling that, for all his outpouring of words, he died with his work incomplete. Wallace, at least, never felt that he had hit his target. His goal had been to show readers how to live a fulfilled, meaningful life. "Fiction's about what it is to be a fucking human being," he once said. Good writing should help readers to "become less alone inside." [...]
Love Hurts (Nazareth cover) - Jenny Lewis and Jonathan Rice I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan cover) - Wilco w/ Fleet Foxes Harvest (Neil Young cover) - Rufus Wainwright Cry Me a River (Justin Timberlake cover) - Glen Hansard
I've been looking forward to the upcoming Grizzly Bear record ever since I first heard them perform "Two Weeks" on Letterman all those months ago. You could tell, just from that one gloriously infectious song, that the new record was going to be something worth hearing, a band growing in the best of ways. Sadly - as you probably already know unless you happen to live underwater - the new record ( Veckatimest ) won't be released until May 26th. But...the band is being cool enough to make a track from the record available for [...]
Fans of Grandaddy (and I count myself strongly among them), rejoice! Jason Lytle, the former leader of that once glorious band, has returned . On May 19th, he will be releasing his debut solo record entitled Yours Truly, the Commuter . The first track released from the record - and the only one I've managed to hear so far - is definitely a keeper, instantly acceptable and recognizable to any former fans of Grandaddy. The man certainly has a unique [...]
True Love Will Find You in the End (Daniel Johnston cover) - Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett Heart of Glass (Blondie cover) - Lily Allen The Park (Feist cover) - Bon Iver Some Weird Sin (Iggy Pop cover) - Okkervil River
Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands
Azealia Banks - '1991' [Listen]
THE MASTERSONS — BIRDS FLY SOUTH
