Crate Digging

Today I went digging into my 45's since I'd amassed quite a few over the past year or so. I'd also sought to get my filthy hands on a few gems through ebay and a couple stores down here. I've determined that I've got a strange collection.

So since, I also had the day off, I started recording a bunch of them to my computer with the intent of making a few mixes with them and justifying the collection to friends, familly, and my wonderfully adoring girlfriend. I'd like to think that I've learned something about how to record records to my computer properly after owning a record player and records for almost two years.

These recordings are far from perfect. Hell, most of the records this series of podcasts came from are far from perfect. So I will ask you all to both becareful while listening, and keep that in mind while listening.

The first I will post is actually the second mix along these lines. The first one still needs some tweaking. This one is also really short and a small download by our standards.

All Vinyl Podcast 2

1. Procol Harum - Whiter Shade of Pale
2. Tilly and the Wall - Patience, Babe
3. John Fred and His Playboy Band - Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)
4. The Solarflares - Open Your Eyes
5. Alexander 'Skip' Spence - Land of the Sun
6. The Mars Volta - Bible and the Breathalyzer

okay, I might have cheated a bit. The Spence track is from a newly released 45 by Sundazed that encompasses the two known songs records since his solo album "Oar." This track actually was meant for the 'X Files' but it was too weird. And The Mars Volta came from a 10 inch picture disc I bought in a Hot Topic up in Terre Haute with Kammie. The Tilly and the wall came from a 7 inch that was at 33 rpm instead of the standard 45.

I still like this little mix. There's something about hearing "Whiter Shade of Pale" on a record that seems to make the song even more ethereal that it already is.

No matter how you cut it, listening to something on vinyl is real, tangible. You can see it playing unlike sliding a CD into a tray and watching it disappear, or the magic that is MP3. It's also cool watching the record turn if it's got a slight warp to it (as most older ones do) from edge on. . .

What Is It?

What is it? This is a mix that defied a name, even weeks after I made it. It's a rock mix, no bones about it. It's full of simple, guitar driven songs by a few of the best bands I know (not all of them, mind you. . . ) There's a couple of songs on there that don't meet either of those criteria, but their still great songs that fit.

What is it?

1. R.E.M. - Man on the Moon
2. Lynard Skynard - Simple Man
3. Neil Young - Down By The River
4. Jimi Hendrix - Castles Made Of Sand
5. Elbow - Fugitive Motel
6. Black Sabbath - Supernaut
7. Pearl Jam - Severed Hand
8. Airiel Down - Suggestion Box
9. Aerosmith - Big Ones - Livin' On The Edge
10. The Doobie Brothers - Black Water
11. ELO - Can't Get It Out Of My Head
12. Pearl Jam - Nothing As It Seems

Also, I've been curious. Who's been following along with this thing lately? Drop us a line if you're liking what you've been hearing.

Ambassadors to Nightmares

Here's a mix of stuff that's been floating around my recent lists on Winamp. It's hard to say anything about this other than I really like the way this mix turned out. God is an Astronaut and Pure Reason Revolution are a pair of bands I don't think I can do without after hearing them. PRR I've put in a couple of people's hands in the store and it's blown them away. And Ozric Tentacles is a band I had recommened a while back by one of the same people I blew away with Pure Reason Revolution.

Have fun with this one. Not let the name get to you.

Ambassadors to Nightmares

1. Pearl Jam - Maggot Brain/Little Wing
2. SIANspheric - This Window
3. God is an Astronaut - Fall From the Stars
4. Tangerine Dream - Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares
5. VHS or Beta - Nightwaves
6. Ozric Tentacles - Saucers
7. Trillian Green - Jack The Cat
8. Pure Reason Revolution - The Bright Ambassadors Of Morning

Popstar

Um... A popstar 'pillar? by *Blepharopsis on deviantART

What a diva...
:) But really. This guys gallery is awsome. Some of the best insect photography I've seen. Very whimsical at times.

Hmm...

So..I was sitting at my computer chair watching t.v. this evening, which is rather unusual. Sure it's on, but I rarely pay attention to what is going on. In anycase, I was watching Bones---another thing I never do---when I came across a song by Susan Enan on the show. I'm impressed, she has a beautiful voice (and I must say, I'm awsome at googling things. I only had a bit of lyrics to figure out who it was. :) ) Anyway...

Check out her myspace.

More YouTube postings. . .

During a bout with insomnia, I started surfing around YouTube again and found this interesting little gem. It is a short, silent film set to a peice by Yann Tiersen, the woman who scored Amelie. At least, I found it rather cute at 2:30 in the morning.

I'm beginning to think that YouTube and Myspace, in all their popularity, are yielding some interesting results for the unsigned and entirely independent artistic world. Now we can link and share independent films and music with relative ease. Even putting your own stuff up is fairly free. Even DeviantArt has made it easier to share your images and writing with the world.

Of course, this makes the search to find anything that's actually good even broader. Luckily, there's always something good out there, once you do a little digging. . .

More Pink Floyd fan-boying. . .

I found these poking around YouTube. The video for "Blue Light" has to be the most un-Floyd thing I've seen Gilmour get involved in. Jesus, look at those dancers.

Deaf Reasons for Leaving the Liquid Sky

Well, here we are with another week and another mix. This one could possibly be a bit of dancy mix, it certainly is upbeat if anything else. I've got soem new bands on here, some old bands, and some I just haven't featured before on here.

The Pink Spiders track comes from their older album, the small label one, and not the one that they are promoting the hell out of everywhere else. I have to admit, I don't think they're much of a band, but they do write and perform some fun stuff.

Deaf Reasons for Leaving the Liquid Sky
1. Presidents of the United States of America - We Are Not Going to Make It
2. Chicago - 25 or 6 to 4
3. The Rakes - Work, Work, Work (Pub, Club, Sleep)
4. The Pink Spiders - Chicago Overcoat
5. Franz Ferdinand - You're The Reason I'm Leaving
6. Nouvelle Vague - Heart Of Glass
7. Primus - The Final Voyage Of The Liquid Sky
8. The Boomtown Rats - when the night comes
9. Black Bonzo - Jailbait
10. Radiohead - Anyone Can Play Guitar
11. Hard-Fi - Middle Eastern Holiday
12. Queens of The Stone Age - A Song For The Dead

Labor Day

Ha! I've got the day off, while I've no doubt the store is busy at the mall I work at. For this week, I'm posting an end of summer treat of a full, two mixes.

The first is a mix I put together this week or so, mostly of stuff I've been listening to lately. It's also meant to be played in store, eventually. But I've got to take the time to burn it. It has some fun stuff and a couple covers.

The second has been played in store and is a second Funk mix for the summer. It formed out of a sampler of some Lakeside, Midnight Star and Shalamar songs that were on the new essential collections put out by Solar a couple months ago. What is especially amusing is how ever-present some of these songs are in modern music through covers and sampling, yet a lot of people just don't know the original. Sadly, someone I work with, a big hip hop fan, noticed a lot of Curtis Mayfield has been sampled, and started filling in Coolio's additions to "Fantastic Voyage" rather than actually knowing these original tracks. Modern Hip Hop owes a lot to the Funk world.

Our mixes:

Destroyed by the Revolution
1. Pulp - The Day After the Revolution
2. The Flaming Lips - Seven Nation Army
3. Super Furry Animals - If You Don't Want Me to Destroy You
4. Cake - Short Skirt Long Jacket
5. The Giraffes - Lonely Chicken
6. The Beatles - Rocky Raccoon
7. Various Artists - The Flaming Lips - If I Only Had A Brain
8. Broken Social Scene - Puff the Magic Dragon
9. Spacehog - Mungo City
10. Talking Heads - (Nothing But) Flowers
11. The Raconteurs - Steady As She Goes
12. The Black Heart Procession - The Spell
13. EASY STAR ALL*STARS - Electioneering

Funky Work
1. Parliament - Chocolate City
2. james brown - funky president (people it's bad)
3. Brothers Johnson - Ain't We Funkin' Now
4. commodores - girl i think the world about you
5. Curtis Mayfield - Diamond In the Back, Sunroof Top, Diggin the Scene..
6. Lakeside - I Want To Hold Your Hand
7. Isaac Hayes - Baby I'm-A Want You
8. The Meters - Fire on the Bayou
9. Prince - I Would Die 4 U
10. Bootsy Collins - Groove Eternal ft. One & Bobby Womack
11. Midnight Star - Freak-A-Zoid
12. Lakeside - Fantastic Voyage

Carried Away

This mix started out, incidentally with the first two songs. I was thinking of making an airy sort of mix after listening to "Where the Wind Goes," and I just happened to browse through my Cocteau Twins folder and came across "Great Spangled fritillary"...Which fairly made me crack up. Why? Because I had been photography that very thing that day. For those of you that do not know a Great Spangled fritillary is a type of butterfly. It sort of fell together from there.

Carried Away
Part 1
Part 2
1. The Shroud - Where the Wind Goes (4:16)
2. Cocteau Twins - Great Spangled Fritillary (4:02)
3. Hungry Lucy - Storm (Carried Away) (4:11)
4. Thea Gilmore - Throwing In (3:44)
5. The Handsome Family - Our Blue Sky (2:59)
6. Rasputina - How We Quit The Forest (2:36)
7. Zoe Keating - Updraught (6:53)
8. Regina Spektor - Field Below (5:18)
9. The Tea Party - Release (4:25)
10. Dave Gahan - Goodbye (5:56)
11. Future Bible Heroes - Real Summer (3:49)
12. Regina Spektor - The Flowers (3:54)
13. Snow Patrol - Open Your Eyes (5:41)
14. Fiona Apple - Oh Well (3:42

Because it's fun...

I have been addicted to YouTube lately. And this has to be one of the cleverest commercials I've seen in a long time. :)

John J. Miller on Music on National Review Online

John J. Miller on Music on National Review Online

I've done my best to keep my political views out of this forum, but from time to time, something comes up that makes me want to say something. This list, put together by a writer for the National Review is a list of the "Top 50 conservative rock songs."

Frankly, I find a lot the author's comments about these songs to be a complete load of hogwash. He seems to be missing the irony and sarcasm behind much of the lyrics. He also fails to understand the context most of these songs were written in. For example, "Taxman" was written in a time when the government truly was the bad guy to liberals, looking to keep us down and out of sight.