My favorite songs of 2006, part the last, plus invisible apologia after the jump. "A Pillar Of Salt" | The Thermals | The Body, The Blood, The Machine | Sub Pop | 8/22/06 | 2:57 | buy disc / mp3s It was hard to choose one top track off the Thermals' monster concept record. I've gone with "Pillar," which embellishes blitzkrieg boppin' guitar and drums with some furiously fun New Wave synth. There's a little doominess in [...]
"Sing" | The Dresden Dolls | Yes, Virginia | Roadrunner | 4/18/06 | 4:40 | buy disc / mp3s I have to be in a particular mood to really get into the cabaret-rock created by Bostonians the Dresden Dolls. Nonetheless, their "let's put on a show" spirit and pianist/singer Amanda Palmer's messy candor, on record and over the Internets, charm me no end. They're an endeavor I want to support, like, philosophically. But there's little qualification or doublethink when it comes to my affection for [...]
Day three of my 2006 faves rundown... "Kick, Push" | Lupe Fiasco | Food & Liquor | Atlantic | 9/19/06 | 4:13 | buy disc / mp3s Yes, this is the token hip hop inclusion. To review: yr humble editor is an old fart when it comes to the boom bap. Sorry, Mom. Sorry, G-d. And I'm less concerned with "Kick, Push" as a document of the skater boi life than I am with its larger subjects: otherness, [...]
The rundown of my favorite songs of 2006 continues... "On The Radio" | Regina Spektor | Begin to Hope | Sire | 6/13/06 | 3:22 | buy disc / mp3s As documented earlier , I got past some initial prejudice about Regina Spektor and came to really dig Begin to Hope. "On The Radio," with its bouncy beat, plucked strings and amiable feel was the first Spektor tune to work its way into my [...]
This is a week for reflection about the year almost ended. Thus, my 2006 round-up, mightily constrained by my budget, listening patterns and mood... It'll be a few songs a day, no particular order, other than starting today with music I discovered through other blogs. Thanks for reading, and enjoy... "Trains To Brazil" | Guillemots | From the Cliffs EP | Verve/Fantastic Plastic | 3/14/16 | 4:03 | buy disc / mp3s The backlash may've already overcome folks' affection for [...]
Elvis Costello & The Attractions "High Fidelity" (Live) So this week PCR turned into High Fidelity (just in time for the Broadway musical!). I don't know why, but you got a Spoon break-up song in between little remembrances of (the end of) summer love , an unrequited crush and recovery from the dissolution of my first really significant relationship. Really, I'm gonna try to knock that shit off. Anyway, I hope you'll pardon yr cruise director, Capt. Obvious here, for [...]
Submarine "Pollen" I'm reaching back to the dorm room days here. That was a time of Anglophilia for me, at least partially out of lingering sentiment for a big summer love I'd had with a British woman (Where are you now, Becky C?). Picking up the Volume mini-mag/compilation series on import was one way I indulged this tendency. It was a pretty reliable source for rare tracks by U.S. alt-rockers and introductions to U.K. NME faves, G-d bless their poor, doomed hearts, as well as the breathless hyperbole and cheekiness we [...]
The Mountain Goats "The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton" (Live) OK, sorry that this week, maybe this month, has turned into PCR Featuring The Usual Suspects of Indie Rock. Maybe I lack imagination or maybe the holidays are making me return to my musical equivalent of comfort food. (A Sebadoh post can only be fast upon the heels...) Anyway, archive.org says that back in 2002 my About page read, in part: Please don't blame the man, but PCR is more than [...]
...maybe. For now, some YouTubage recommended to me by my roomie: M.I.A. and Timbaland frolicking in-studio. A moment of Zen if I've seen one.
Spoon "Everything Hits At Once" The radio got totally intolerable last night while I was driving home from work, so I needed a change. I put in Girls Can Tell , Austin rockers Spoon's moody and marvelous 2000 return to the indie world after an ill-fated sojourn into the indifferent arms of Neglektra Elektra. I ended up kinda just listening to "Everything Hits At Once," the album opener, on repeat. (Yeah, you got me, at first it was all about that "lights in traffic we become/on the way back home" [...]
Ted Leo "Under The Hedge" (Demo) I'm kind of a Ted Leo/Pharmacists superfan, and I realized that a couple months into hacking away at this newfangled "blag" thing all the kids are talking about, I haven't featured any music by dude. He pulls off his Thin Lizzy/Jam/Elvis C./dubby vein of punk-inspired smart rock-not exactly a trendy endeavor at any point in the last decade or so-without being, to these ears, wholly derivative. His songs are catchy, and the POV of his lyrics show a guys whose head and heart are in [...]
The Spinanes "Madding" Lois "Rougher" Mark De Gli Antoni "They Wave" For those of you who enjoyed all or part of Sabado de Gloria week, I thought I'd close out with one more Elliott Smith-related post, here collecting a handful of guest vocal type situations. Elliott harmonizes on the sultry, syrupy "Madding," opener to Portland indie pop fellow-travelers the Spinanes' 1996 record, Strand, Maybe as a return favor for main Spinane Rebecca Gates' [...]
This week Paper Covers Rock is presenting a live Elliott Smith show in five installments. Mp3s in each entry will expire when the next installment is posted. All apologies from the writer/recordist, etc. Elliott Smith (Live @ Largo, 4/11/98) banter "All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)" banter "Lost Highway" banter "No Name #13 banter "Alphabet City" [...]
This week Paper Covers Rock is presenting a live Elliott Smith show in five installments. Mp3s in each entry will expire when the next installment is posted. All apologies from the writer/recordist, etc. Elliott Smith (Live @ Largo, 4/11/98) banter "Clouds" smoke break "Killing A Southern Belle" banter "Jealous Guy" banter "Needle In The Hay" banter [...]
This week Paper Covers Rock is presenting a live Elliott Smith show in five installments. Mp3s in each entry will expire when the next installment is posted. All apologies from the writer/recordist, etc. Elliott Smith (Live @ Largo, 4/11/98) requests "Rose Parade" requests/tuning break "No Name #33 "The Biggest Lie" banter "Coming Up Roses" requests "Alameda" [...]
This week Paper Covers Rock is presenting a live Elliott Smith show in five installments. Mp3s in each entry will expire when the next installment is posted. All apologies from the writer/recordist, etc. Elliott Smith (Live @ Largo, 4/11/98) tuning break "Clementine" banter "St. Ide's Heaven" banter "Oh Well, OK" "Say Yes" "Some Song" In yesterday's post I touted Elliott [...]
This week Paper Covers Rock is presenting a live Elliott Smith show in five installments. Mp3s in each entry will expire when the next installment is posted. All apologies from the writer/recordist, etc. Elliott Smith (Live @ Largo, 4/11/98) intro "Tomorrow Tomorrow" (Aborted) banter "Between The Bars" "Waltz No. 2 (XO)" "Division Day" banter "Angeles" I remember the Elliott Smith [...]
Neil Diamond "Sweet Caroline" (Live) Mark Holder "Sweet Caroline" Wham! "Careless Whisper" Ben Folds & Rufus Wainwright "Careless Whisper" (Live) Last weekend I managed to rock the karaoke mic two nights running. At a Friday night party, friends had set up their computer as a karaoke system, and I got to warm up for an already planned, full-on Saturday night session at a box karaoke joint in the basement of a Koreatown mall. It was [...]
-what's poppin', lil homie? yo jigga- -i hear they got ya locked up in this piece five-o sweatin me- -you need help with the bail? my record sold like 800k last week ...- -how were yr numbers? man don't playa hate, reprezentate.- -guys don't fight guys [...]
American Music Club "Firefly" Mark Eitzel "Firefly" (Live) On their now out-of-print 1988 album California , bad-luck alt-rock critic's darlings American Music Club put an ironically upbeat, mellow spin on "Firefly." It is, after all, a song of transience. It's an ode to the few moments we're allotted with the beautiful things in life, a theme that naturally carries an undertow of sadness. And then the Club's frontman, Mark Eitzel, was writing as a gay man in late 80s San Francisco- [...]
Paper Covers Rock
Deer Tick – “The Rock”
Craziest Horse: The 15-Minute Like A Hurricane From Berlin
Escucha el ruidoso regreso de M.I.A.
Holy living fuck the new Die Antwoord video is intense
