Decathlon

I've been listening to a lot of mega-mixes lately and I noticed that I am more prone to listen to a song all the way through if it is over 10 minutes in length compared to a song, say, 6 minutes long. Often I find these are droning indie-rock songs or repetitious down-tempo staples. I checked my itunes library and there is a surprising amount of 10+ minute songs that I not only listen to completely, but commonly. Here is my top ten list of most played in order of length according to itunes (no mixes allowed) and please use the comments section to list some of yours:

- Take Care Of Yourself by Owen - 10:10
- Street Hassle by Lou Reed - 10:53 (yeah, I know it's in three parts)
- Grey Machine by Pinback - 11:08
- Born Slippy by Underworld - 11:37
- In/Flux by DJ Shadow - 12:14
- Bros by Panda Bear - 12:30
- Respect Is Due by The Dismemberment Plan - 12:35
- Soop Groove No.1 by Stereolab - 13:07
- Late One Sunday by American Analog Set - 13:13
- Helmet to Ecstatic by The Rum Diary - 14:20

The Year That Was 2008

This is my favorite time of the year - "best-of" season. This is my opportunity to; catch up on bands I heard about, but never checked out, to listen to, for the first time, bands that flew under my radar all year and of course to to talk trash on the current state of things. Closing out 2008- I thought that it was just my own intellectual musical taste that led me to to purchase so few albums this year, but there seems to be a sentiment shared with a lot of music critics - 2008 was pretty pitiful. And here's why:

- Everyone needs to get over Antares auto-tune. Seriously. If I wanted to hear a monotone robot muttering over a tired beat - I would pick up a speak and spell and throw on an ultimate breaks record. Pitch correction software wasn't meant to make bad singers good - it was meant to fix good singer's momentary screw-ups in the booth. If you are a bad singer, then be a bad singer. It's endearing. Tim Kinsella makes a living at it and he's gets all the street cred in my book. And you know who started all this? Cher. You are riding Cher's coat tails, buddy. Think about that Kanye.
- No one cares that you were on American Idol. Actually no one cares if you won either. Stop making horrible records.
- If you blew up because you posted something on the web that was new and unpolished and dirty and cool and interesting and people dug it - Don't mess with the formula in the studio. Black Kids I am looking at you.
- It's okay to make music with 80's synths, technology and instruments. But just because you have access to the equipment doesn't mean you should base your whole premise on an inside-joke. It's not cool. It's gone from bad to good and back again.
- The Vivians Girls sum up my take on dance-punk brillantly here:

Vivian Girls: Just Write a Good Song.

- Hip-hop needs to officially emancipate itself from this thing that people are calling "Rap" now. Now that MTV stopped showing videos altogether maybe we can pull back the production of all this gimmicky, tween-friendly, dance-craze abominations. You aren't Rufus Thomas. We don't need anymore dances. Thank god Q-Tip and People Under The Stairs released good, quality hip-hop albums this year.
- The Avalanches still haven't released their second album. Guys. Please take off the "putting the finishing touches on album 2!!!!!!!!!" headline from your myspace page. I get excited every time I see it and then I realize that's been up since before I realized myspace was just a place for untalented people to post their untalented music (Not you guys though - you rule over ipod. Please...release something.)


SO...I wanted to put together a list of my favorite albums of the year, but I couldn't even do that. Although the album output was pretty poor, a lot of good songs were released this year. Some were cornerstones of great albums and others will been stand-alone islands on my ipod. As a result I put together a 2008 mix for all of you. These aren't necessarily what I think are the best songs of 2008 - just a mix of what I listened to and enjoyed the most. There are a lot of releases missing here that I would have liked to include, but they didn't fit with the mix (Q-Tip, Portishead, People Under The Stairs, Animal Collective, etc.) This is one long mix, no gaps. If you like what you hear and want the full song, please support the artist and buy their album (at least these guys released quality product.)

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http://www.divshare.com/download/5989169-018

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Track List (In order of appearance not appreciation):

1. El Guincho - Palmitos Park

2. Ducktails - Beach Point Pleasant

3. Panda Bear - Boneless (Remix of the Notwist song)

4. Air France - Collapsing At Your Door

5. Grouper - Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping *my 2008 pick of the year*

6. Vivian Girls - I Can't Stay (Live - Pink Couch Sessions)

7. Little Joy - The Next Time Around

8. Department of Eagles - No One Does It Like You

9. El Perro Del Mar - How Did We Forget?

10. Richard Swift - Would You?

11. Kim & Jessie - M83

12. Flying Lotus - Parisian Goldfish

13. High Places - Vision's The First

14. Ratatat - Brulee

15. Nomo - Ghost Rock

16. Quiet Village - Circus Of Horror

17. Carpet Madness - Get Back Quinozzi!

18. Dance Dance Dance - Lykke Li

Pick Of The Crate - Your Funny Moods & 3 Minutes 2 - Hey Girl

I have a lot of great records to throw up here in this series, so I am going to start with two of my favorite finds. Both records are bass-heavy, soulful pleas from a heartbroken man to his lady.


The first track is by a Washington/Baltimore group Skip McHoney and the Casuals on DC International Records. Here Skip pleads with his lady to understand why he has to go. Ultimately it is her nasty attitudes and her funny moods that drive Skip away. It is also a result of one of my favorite lyrics, "You don't want a man, you want a robot." The track is driven by a smooth bassline, lush string sweeteners and backing vocals by the Casuals. This track apparently caused some problems between the band members (who broke up shortly afterwards), because up until this point they were simply called the Casuals and did not want an individual name out front, but the label chose to list the artist as Skip McHoney and the Casuals on the 45.


The second track is by George Kerr, a former member of the Escorts and the Serenaders, on All Platinum. Opposite to the first track, here George is pleading with his lady to stay after he makes some unfortunate comments to another set of ladies. The track starts slow with a spoken conversation, but merges into the meat of the song with a drum and piano build-up. The track grows in power and emotion as George runs through a stream of consciousness lyrical approach after realizing the implications of not having his lady sets in. I haven't seen a lot of George Kerr solo releases, but he is responsible for penning tracks for the Escorts, the Moments and Linda Jones among many others.

Who I'm In Love With Today - The Ladies Of Ladytron

I have been a huge fan of Ladytron for some time now and after doing a disc-to-disc marathon of Ladytron albums today - it is official that I am in love with Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo of Ladytron. For a period of time, I was removed from female-fronted groups due to a lack of quality - *MAJOR footnote here - don't get me wrong, Bjork, Natalie Merchant, Beth Gibbons, Kate Bush and Annie Lennox were all releasing albums at this point in time and they are all on my list of voices I wish I had if I were female, but overall the quality in female-fronted bands in the early to mid 2000s weren't at the caliber they could have been.

It wasn't until I heard 604 in 2005 (I know, I am late in the Ladytron-game) that a new love of the female voice emerged for me. Since then I have proclaimed my love and hand in marriage for both female factions of Ladytron. Please keep up the good work ladies (and men who accompany them.)

Records That Time Forgot - You're My Best Friend

Two's company. Because three would just look ridiculous.

Otis Redding - You Left The Water Running

It's hard not to fall in love with the simplicity of the title and the concept. It would be nice to be able to charge folks for the pain they've caused you. It also doesn't hurt that this song was sung by one of the best soul singers in the history of everything.

If I could counter-charge Verizon for the torment they have put me through, I'm pretty sure I'd break even and not have to pay for my cable, phone and internet. I called them the other day, wrestled past the robot that insisted that she could handle my issue, only to be hung up on by her and instructed to please try the whole process again later for another chance at a real person. It would be bliss to send them a confusing and poorly organized bill for $49.13 for my time wasted on the phone, that they would have no choice but to pay (preferably on auto-bill).

So like I said, simple concept. You left. You made Otis cry? Fine, if that's the way you want it, but just wait til you get your water bill to pay.

Shame on you.

Who I'm In Love With Today - Felicia Day

Being naive and easily persuaded - I tend to fall in love with people very easily. The majority of these people are conveniently enough, people I will never meet. So, I will use this blog to express my affection for those people I have made a special place for on my pedestal in my mind.

Today, I am completely in love with Felicia Day. I first saw her on the Cheetos commercial and subsequently have ran through several Laundromat scenarios in which we match rogue lost socks over the hum of the detergent machine.




Then I saw her in the excellent, and highly recommended Joss Whedon web-movie, "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" whereby she jumped rank to mild enamoration.

She was interviewed today over at The Onion and it turns out she is a gamer. Now, to clarify, I am not into World of Warcraft, so I don't completely understand "The Guild" videos, but the simple fact that she is a gamer has elevated her to pedestal status. Some of you who know me have heard the story of when I was a freshman in college and Tony Hawk Pro Skater came out. Basically, I lived and breathed THPS and was given an ultimatum by my then girlfriend to chose Tony or her. I chose Tony. So it's refreshing to know that there are some ladies in the world who accept excessive nerdation. You can read the full story here.

The Onion Interview


So here's to you Felicia. I hope you enjoy the temporary status of the person I am in love with today.

Fallout 3

I am a rabid consumer of media. I love to learn from all sorts of things. One thing I have always enjoyed learning from, even if only a few small lessons, has been video games. So, here, I'd like to bring them up. Lest we get to thinking that this blog can only be about music (which I am also a big fan of, to be sure), I want to talk about a video game- and a PC game at that.

Recently, a game was released to great fanfare. This game utilizes a celebrated engine and design from a celebrated company that is just a few scant miles from my home.

Bethesda Softworks, makers of the amazing Elder Scrolls series, have created Fallout 3. I'm not going to review the game in it's entirety. I've only completed about 1/10th of it so far. I don't know if I will ever finish the whole thing. I may never see every stitch of it, despite working hard to complete almost every game I've ever owned. 

The problem isn't with my resolve (hah! of course not...). It's just that the game is almost too big to play in it's entirety.

A trend that has not worked well for all games.

But I cannot find fault in Fallout 3 for this. The game is immense in proportion and frightening in it's prescience. But alluring and interesting. It is well designed and well thought-out. It smacks of reality while showing a terrible fantasy.

The characters are alive and realistic, despite being made so obviously of pixels, even at an amazing high 1920 x 1200 resolution (high definition has always had better resolution than real life for me).


And while the experience is so amazingly and obviously simulated, I can't help but find myself wanting to come back for more.

Records That Time Forgot - Ramona From Daytona

This is my first installment of Records That Time Forgot. If I find any musical artifacts that need to be shared with the world, I will gladly present them to you here.

Living outside of D.C., every once in a while, you can find some relics from the Library of Congress in thrift stores. This record comes courtesy of Step One Records out of Nashville and it encapsulates the beauty and simplicity that only a guy in a sweater/blazer combination could produce. On the record, Dave Holladay blesses the world with such kleenex grabbers as, "Pull Up A Pillow" and "I. O. Blues". Either track would have been a suitable B-Side to Kirk Van Houten's, "Can I Borrow A Feeling."

Maybe time didn't forget Dave Holladay's epic, but instead tried to remove it from the history of civilization by striking it from the shelves of the Library of Congress. Think about it - if the planet does get taken over by talking apes and only shreds of human history are preserved - the last thing we want is for them to slip Ramona From Daytona on the hi-fi and get whisked away to a time when you could make an album cover with MS Paint and Word clipart.

Something You Got

I am using my first post to continue the discussion on samples. Here is a gem found digging one morning. This is the sample used in "Work" by RJD2. The Original sample is called, "Something You Got" by Alvin Robinson. It is on Tiger Records - TI-104. I haven't seen this sample listed as the source, so I thought I would share it with anyone who hasn't heard it yet. We here at WHET already discussed the sample and I think Lojak described it best, "RJ flipped the sample by making his song in the relative minor key. The sample source is in a major key, and it works because there's not much other melody happening while he's singing."


Enjoi.

After Laughter (Comes Tears)

I love it when you realize that a good song that you are looking for is already in your collection.

I bought the complete Stax singles boxed set a while ago when I had some extra cash. Buying big sets like that can be hard to justify, but I didn't think that I would regret the purchase in the long run. I was right too, there are so many gems in this catalog that it should be a no brainer.

I've heard the Wu-Tang track that sampled this song so many times that I keep waiting for the beat to drop when I listen to the original. The original is so good though that it doesn't need to drop for me to listen to this one on repeat for a while.