12.30.04:
The
2004 Retrospective Year-In-Music box set is complete. It's 10 CDs with a total of 172 songs, and just over 11 hours of music. You can view the complete tracklisting here. Good stuff. 2004 was a spectacular year for music.
And just in case anybody was worried, it appears that things will be okay, at least for a bit...
12.29.04:
Here's my Top 10 Singles for 2004 (One of which wasn't a single, but I absolutely love the song and decided that it should have been a single).
10. Chewing Gum - Annie (If I had one guilty pleasure in 2004 it was driving around listening to Chewing Gum on endless repeat. See my full review of the single here.)
09. Stay - Asobi Seksu (The one non-single on the
list. Reminds me of Lush and the whole shoegazer scene in the early 90's but only for a brief moment. Brilliant piece of longing and desire encapsulated in a five minute song.)
08. Walk Idiot Walk - The Hives (Kick ass and irony free pop perfection with sleigh bells and hand claps. This is what Rock & Roll is supposed to sound like.)
07. Hey Girl - The Delays (Always a sucker for the chiming of a 12 string Rickenbacker. A blissful love song that should have been a hit.)
06. Send Me Shivers - Mouse on Mars (Mouse on Mars are one of the few bands that make me want to dance, and I hate dancing. All the usual Mouse on Mars elements are to be found on Send Me Shivers, but less abstract than they usually are.)
05. Formed A Band - Art Brut (No words can begin to describe the brilliance of this song. Not since The Smiths have a British band sounded so disgusted with English culture.)
04. This Fire - Franz Ferdinand (Nothing new going on with this Scottish quartet that hasn't already been done but This Fire is a fantastic single and itheir debut is an incredible album. What I love so much about this band is how every song on the album was written as a potential single. It's rare for a band to actually care about the listener.)
03.
Seventeen Years - Ratatat (Sure, the album didn't really live up to this single, but like I wrote before, and I quote myself, "Dope as fuck.")
02. The Power Is On - The Go! Team (Cheerleader chants, big beats, smashing piano chords, and 70's styled cop drama television show horn hits. What more could you ask for in a song?)
01. Heartbeat - Annie (I heart Annie. None of my friends can figure out why, and I can't either. Pure pop bliss.)
I've almost completed the 2004 year in review box set, and I'll be posting my top 10 albums within the next few days.
12.28.04:
12.26.04:
Christmas was wonderful, and I'm blessed with such a loving family to spend it with.
Just finished a six mile run. I'm still not up to my pre-marathon days but I'm slowly gaining back all that was lost in the weeks following the marathon. In two weeks I'll be in Hawaii, and I'd really like to get at least one 13 mile run in, but we'll see. Everything hinges on what goes on next weekend, which I think is New Year's Eve. I always find it satisfying to wake on January 1st to do a long run, but only if I don't stay out and drink the night away (there are 364 other days in the year to drink until distraction.)
Song: Don't Wait That Long - James (I was sitting in my apartment, minding my own damn business when this song creeped into my heart. "Operator the lines are down / And I'm a traitor / A traitor to a beautiful cause." This is one of a handful of songs that physically makes my heart hurt.)
12.24.04:
Christmas Eve. Maybe I'm slightly crazy, but I jump at the opportunity to go running in sub zero winter weather. Yesterday I passed on running knowing that it would be colder today, ten degrees colder. And let me be the first to say it was one fun run. Within five minutes of the run I was nice and toasty. Even the iPod was kept warm.
Over the past week I've been listening to two mixes that I made.
Sunday Night Mix:
The Word - Benjamin Biolay
I Melt With You - Silja
La noyee - Carla Bruni
The Beautifull Ones - Misty Dixon
Five Seconds To Hold You - Devics
Stay - Asobi Seksu
Evil House, Evil Day - Kim Hiorthøy
Sad Love Song - Jeanne Cherhal
Chelsea Burns - Keren Ann
Let's Get Lost - Elliot Smith
Winter Killing - Stina Nordenstam
Lullaby Requiem - Neil Finn
When You're Not Mine - Laurie & John
Yellow Light - Eleni Mandell
Auf Wiedersehen - Bettie Serveert
Christmas Mix:
Christmas Time Is Here - Ivy
The Christmas Song - Raveonettes
I Was Born On Christmas Day - Saint Etienne
Fairy Tale In New York - The Pogues
You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch - Boris Karloff
White Christmas - The Beach Boys
I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day - Pedro The Lion
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Death Cab For Cutie
La Chanson De Noel - Misty Dixon
Just Like Christmas - Low
Christmas - Leona Naess
Last Christmas -
Erlend Øye
My Christmas Prayer - Saint Etienne
Christmas Party - The Walkmen
Blue Christmas - The Beach Boys
Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal) - Vince Guaraldi Trio
I had this thought that after my trip to Hawaii I'm going to hibernate and do nothing but read. I have a stack of books that I really want to get through, and the only way I'll get through all of them is if I get all solitary and focus on reading and very little else. But that's incredibly selfish. However, I do need my solitude, and I tend to need it more during the winter months.
And this is just hilarious...
12.18.04:
"Everybody wants something, and I want it all..."
So I glance back. Where's December? I've been listening to Saint Etienne all morning long. But I woke up to Don't Go Back To Rockville. I promise, I won't, but I wouldn't mind waking up in London, or some other city, be it foreign or in the US. Thinking is dangerous.
Yesterday two prints arrived in the mail. Strangely they sum up how I feel today:
Both prints are by an illustrator named Jordan Crane. I think I'll put them in my bedroom as the walls are pretty bare.
I think if there was one song that could emotionally describe me today it would be Saint Etienne's Late Morning, off of Sound Of Water. Then again, this entire album... I think Will You Find Me, I've Been a Mess, or even Last Harbor.
12.15.04:
Soundtrack for today:
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Efterklang | A Girl Called Eddy |
Deerhoof | The Decemberists |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Crooked Fingers |
Death Cab For Cutie | Depeche Mode |
Mylo |
 |
 |
||
| The Delgados | The Delgados |
The Question:
and so on and so forth
e-loyalty and designer food
1,525 miles to vegas
remember joints soaked in formaldehyde?
about teapots
beer is for winners
constituency
churchies
mr. t: a radical follower of Christ
the science and technology of rubber
Answer:
What are subject headings in recent emails.
12.14.04:
Soundtrack for yesterday and today:
 |
|
 |
 |
| Frank Black | A Girl Called Eddy |
The Album Leaf | David Bowie |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Boomtown Rats | The Delgados | Billy Bragg |
Blur |
 |
|||
| Black Box Recorder |
When living in Champaign-Urbana, while attending the University of Illinois, Kim and I had this apartment and we covered the living room walls with posters, one of which was a subway sized poster of Frank Black's Teenager of the Year. One night Kim and I made popcorn on the stovetop, tossed it into a paper bag, added salt, and ate it along with a bottle of Bushmills Irish Whiskey. We got pretty loaded. Teenager of the Year is the best of his solo albums.
A Girl Called Eddy's self titled debut is my #1 album for the year. Like The Pernice Brothers Yours, Mine & Ours, A Girl Called Eddy's album is one of those rare releases that I can put on repeat and listen to endlessly and be blown away each and every time.
The Album Leaf are an American version of Sigur Ros, but slightly different, with more focus on the Rhodes piano.
Still stuck on Bowie. My least favorite of the 70's era Bowie album covers.
Always wanted to cover She's So Modern by The Boomtown Rats, which inevitably leads me to Modern Life is Rubbish by Blur, which could have been a complete classic with just a bit of tighter editing.
What's not to love about Hate? The Delgados' Universal Audio will make my top 10.
Black Box Recorder are the only band that can make ennui, cynicism, and absolute disgust sound sexy. England Made Me contains one of the most honestly horrific lyrics ever penned, "Life is unfair / Kill yourself or get over it." Sarah Nixey's seductively bored and detached vocals make this band so thrilling.
Billy Bragg's Back to Basics is the complete opposite of England Made Me. Whereas Black Box Recorder only see dead British culture, Bragg sees room for optimistic change.
This is funny, and I never knew these even existed:
The Rat Zapper uses advanced electronic technology to deliver a deadly shock to mice and rats. Just bait the Rat Zapper with ordinary dry pet food. When the rodent goes for food, it steps on a kill plate. The system senses its presence, then delivers enough electrical energy to quickly kill the rodent. Disposal is clean and easy. Simply add new bait, turn the system on and place back in an active area. Includes bait. Requires 4 ""AA"" Batteries (not included). Batteries last 30-60 days.
 |
First, I don't own this, so I can't speak to the quality or production values of this recording. Second, I'm really not all that familiar with Miss Lohan and her celebrity status. You'd have thought that my eyes would be drawn to Miss Lohan's seductive pose, but they aren't. No, my eyes are drawn to the skull and cross bones. How cool is that? And the pink flying V guitar, how punk rock. I'm waiting patiently to see if this album will make any critic's top 10 for 2004. |
12.13.04:
I arrived at work today to see that someone left a blue badge on my chair.
The badge reads:
Who I Am Makes A Difference
No truer words have ever been written or spoken. So, I've pinned the badge onto my shirt and am wearing it proudly as I walk around the office.
In all seriousness, is a badge of this nature really supposed to make me feel better inside? Is this what we as humans have become? It all just rings of some falsehood, an empty slogan.
 |
 |
|
[Failure #1]
|
[Failure #2]
|
12.12.04:
Soundtrack para la dia:
 |
 |
 |
 |
| The Books | Chris Bell | Boards of Canada |
Ashby |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Muse | Air | Air | Be Good |
 |
 |
 |
|
Belle and |
Bonnie "Prince" Billy |
Breakfast At Tiffany's |
The Books' Lemon of Pink was one of my Top 10 in 2003. Read my review. It's still a thrilling laptop folk based album.
Chris Bell's opening line to his one and only album, "Every night I tell myself I am the cosmos / I am the wind / That don't bring you back again," has to be one of the greatest opening lines to a song and album. Bell played on the first Big Star album and died in a car accident in 1978.
Boards of Canada's Music Has A Right To Children is the perfect soundtrack to a night filled with strange dreams that were borderline nightmares. Maybe it was the pineapple sorbet? Too much sugar, next time I'll try using organic pineapple juice instead of that stuff I found at the Jewel. That's not to say it wasn't good. It was, just too sweet for even me.
Thankfully Ashby's Power Ballads contain absolutely no power ballads. Ashby play a light and breezy pop concoction that has more in common with Ivy, Saint Etienne and Stereolab than with Poison or Cinderella.
I love running to Muse's Absolution. Great 21st Century anthemic, dear I say, prog rock. As I battled the 25 mph winds out of the Northwest this album played on the iPod.
Air's Talkie Walkie plays like the middle ground between their perfect debut, Moon Safari, and their just bizarre 10,000 Hz Legend, which is possibly one of the most coldly detached and creepy albums in forever. Alone in Kyoto, from Talkie Walkie, as well as from the Lost In Translation soundtrack, is gorgeous.
Nothing beats eating cold creme brule french toast, from Whole Foods, along with a pot of mint tea at 8 PM on a Sunday night and listening to The Be Good Tonyas. Before Jolie Holland set off on her own she was part of The Be Good Tonyas, and sings on Blue Horses. The album opens with one of Jolie Hollands prettiest songs, The Littlest Birds.
And somehow, while listening to Belle and Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister, I managed to dance around my apartment like a complete nerd. But I guess that means I'm happy. So put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Today consisted of:
Running five miles
Watching School of Rock, which I totally enjoyed expecting that I'd hate it.
Doing laundy
Going grocery shopping and spending too much on impulse buys. Need to shop with a list. But damn that creme brulee french toast was good, and probably cheaper than getting takeout tonight.
Pretty exciting stuff. Just happy that I got out and ran five miles. I really need to get my Sunday runs up to between 8 and 13 miles.
12.11.04:
Soundtrack for today:
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Keren Ann | Lady & Bird | Big Star | Big Star |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Big Star | David Bowie | David Bowie | Billy Bragg & Wilco |
 |
This is the David Bowie Phone, designed by Kim using David Bowie album covers cut out from Q Magazine. It's a fully functional phone, I just wish I could push a button on it to dial David Bowie directly. Bowie fucking rocks, and so does this phone. I'm not sure why Kim designed the David Bowie phone, but I'm happy she did. |
I never get sick of Keren Ann, and Nolita is no exception. Lady & Bird is a side project that consists of Keren Ann and Bardi Johannsson of Iceland's Bang Gang. This is a perfect late Fall/Winter album. It's filled with a deep sense of passing innocence and melancholy. The album includes covers of two timeless classics, The Velvet Underground's Stephanie Says and Suicide is Painless, the theme from the movie M*A*S*H*.
God how I love Big Star, not sure if they wrote one bad song. I really enjoy the Live album, it's sloppy, but perfect.
Bowie, yeah Bowie. Low is probably my favorite Bowie album. It sounds like nothing before it and like nothing after it; an island of genius.
It's been forever since I listened to Billy Bragg & Wilco's Mermaid Avenue. Oh how I love Way Over Yonder In A Minor Key.
Today I:
Ran four miles
Finished reading Let It Be by Colin Meloy -- An excellent read
Made pineapple sorbet
Contemplated a car-less lifestyle and whether or not it's possible for me
Went to see Caffery
Ran into my older brother at the grocery store. He was purchasing the ingredients to make waffles. When our grandparents would watch Eric and I on Saturday nights my Grandfather would make waffles. Waffles are a Saturday night tradition of sorts.
12.10.04:
Took the day off of work.
Jason asked that I put another clip of our last show on my website, so here's Knocked On Wood (Quicktime Required).
Outside of doing some Christmas shopping I began reading this and watched this:
 |
 |
I'm really digging Colin Meloy's autobiographical approach to writing about The Replacements'Let It Be. I guess that's how I approach albums, from a more internal perspective.
Today it's been all Bowie. I kicked off the day with Reality, which really is incredible, and now I'm listening to Scary Monsters. I intend to listen to the majority of his catalog before the day is over.
12.09.04:
Today's soundtrack:
 |
 |
 |
|
| Keren Ann | Keren Ann | Keren Ann | Keren Ann |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Azure Ray | The Auteurs | Billy Bragg | John Tejeda |
The other night, while at the grocery store, I finally left my twenties behind. I was purchasing paper towels, toilet paper. and deodorant. Oh, and a bottle of Ciroc Vodka. I say I left my twenties because that was the first time at that particular Jewel, with that particular clerk, that I wasn't asked for my ID. So I've "officially" become 30 even though my 30th birthday was last March and I'm fast approaching 31.
So today I obviously have a thing for Keren Ann. She's only released one album in the U.S., which really is a shame. Her latest, Nolita, is an extremely restrained and wonderfully subtle album that opens up the more you listen. Actor/Writer/Filmmaker Sean Gullette appears on the final track, Song Of Alice. Nolita has a very Leonard Cohen feel to it, and Chelsea Burns is one of the best tracks in 2004.
Ever since hearing Azure Ray I've had a crush on them. Burn & Shiver is good stuff.
There was Brit Pop, and then there was The Auteurs. Finally tracked down this album while in Dubline last February. Feisty vitriolic filled anthems.
Billy Bragg... Too many personal reasons that I'm not willing to write about, but this is one of my favorite Bragg albums.
I did a quick 3.5 mile run last night to John Tejeda's latest album. Minimalist Detroit house techno pop with a heart.
12.08.04:
Today's soundtrack:
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Clogs | Magnetic Fields | Jason Forrest | Marianne Faithfull |
 |
|
|
 |
| Shane MacGowan |
Ellen Allien | Keren Ann | Linda Perhacs |
Clogs play contemporary classical music mixed with folk, not as over the top doom and gloom sounding as say God Speed You Black Emperor. Icy and beautiful.
Magnetic Fields' i is another one of those 2004 releases that I, no pun intended, wasn't too keen on. Not as good as 69 Love Songs, but how in hell do you follow up a box set filled with 69 love songs? Actually, i is the perfect follow-up.
Jason Forrest's The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post Disco Crash manages to dissect and slam the history of Western music onto a digital shiny plastic disc. And it'll make you dance if you're not careful. Astounding! Somehow Forrest crams the essence of the entire ELO catalog into one less than two minute track entitled Why I Love ELO. Amazing that this album isn't generating any sampling controversy considering it plunders the hell out of the Who for the last track 10 Amazing Years.
Marianne Faithfull's latest is a collection of songs written for her by PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Damon Alburn, and Jon Brion. Faithfull's voice is a perfect match for the songs written by PJ Harvey. Surprisingly the only clunker out of the ten songs is the last track penned by Jon Brion, a genius who I thought could never write a sub par piece of music. If only the Rolling Stones were still as relevant as Marianne Faithfull. Maybe Courtney Love should take a page from Faithfull's biography.
Thoughts of seeing Shane MacGowan play years ago at The Metro, along with hearing Haunted a few days ago off an old mix CD, forced me to grab The Snake this morning. God is he a poet, and Haunted will forever kill me. I still miss you, and I guess I always will.
Ellen Allien's Berlinette makes me want to grab the next flight out of Chicago to Berlin. Excellent 21st Century techno, and oddly enough the perfect accompaniment to a pot of freshly brewed mint tea.
Keren Ann's Nolita, her follow-up to last year's perfectly enchanting English speaking debut, Not Going Anywhere, is her first album to combine songs sung in both French and English, and it's her first album without Benjamin Biolay as the producer. I haven't yet listened to this as it's arriving sometime today via UPS from NYC's finest music store othermusic.com. From the samples that I've heard this will be another thoughtfully quiet album.
Linda Perhac's Parallelograms is a long lost and obscure psychedelic folk classic best experienced on headphones. Out of print for many years it was recently reissued.
12.07.04:
My soundtrack for today:
|
Jens Lekman is a star in his own country, but a nobody in the U.S., which
is quite sad.
King Radio is 1/4 of The Scud Mountain Boys.
Carla Bruni aka French super model. Her songs aren't as gorgeous as Keren
Ann's music, but still in the tradition of Francoise Hardy.
I think I initially dismissed PJ Harvey's Uh Huh Her, or I at least
dismissed half of the album, but really this is some of her best stuff.
Must be played loud to get the full effect.
This morning, between drinking my morning coffee and trying to get ready for work, I was reading The Heart of Thoreau's Journals. In it I came across this one section called "One Moment of Life" and what surprised me the most was how I often viewed the 19th Century lifestyle as slow, as in people didn't rush around. I guess I was under the impression that our fast lives in the 20th and 21st Century were created by our speed based technological advances, but alas I was wrong. The problem existed then, but my guess is that it's worse now.
It's raining again. Where's Scott Walker's orchestra when you need them?
12.06.04:
This belongs in December. Huh? My state of mind today is questionable,
maybe suspect, and I'm not sure why. I'd like to crawl inside a giant
set of headphones. Here there are birds.
My soundtrack for today:
|
The top four have been on rotation while at work. The bottom two in my car.
However, if I had to pick one song for today it would be Five Seconds To Hold You by Devics.