100th Post

I've been preparing this post for quite a while now. But today seems like the ideal time to actually publish it, seeing as it's Halloween and all. Especially considering that this is my landmark 100th post. I hope they haven't all sucked so far :)

I have a special treat for everyone. This one's courtesy of my bud Ingers (his blog is over here, it's mostly hip-hop stuff). He sent me this brilliant little video the other day. I'm praying really hard this kid Bangs is being serious. Check it out:



Heh.

Now onto other stuff I've picked out

I've been listening to the Headlights for a while. I probably heard them first on Grey's Anatomy or some such, maybe a couple years ago even. In any case they're good and they've had a new album come out earlier this year and there are a few songs on it that are very good. You should have a listen to "Get Going" right here, or if you'd prefer check out "Telephones" and "Secrets" over here. It's pretty happy stuff, which is always nice. I hope you agree.

Next up, I've got Calexico. I've written about them before and I think I mentioned this last time, but I've really had to get used to their music. The first time they came on when I was listening to random tracks on betterPropaganda, I thought they kind of sucked. For a while now though, I have to say I've really started enjoying the music. In fact, now I can't even tell what was off-putting to me at the beginning. It's very calming music. I reckon you should just check out their song "Cruel" for yourselves over here. I think the purty album cover might be influencing me too, but that's definitely not the only nice thing about Calexico.

Speaking of cool album covers. This one from the Horse Feathers album House With No Home is probably even cooler. It reminds me of the abandoned shacks one sees when driving around Vermont in the cold Winter months. I took this fabulous little class my senior year in college called pin-hole photography and we spent a good amount of our time taking pictures of just this sort of rickety old buildings. The song fits the mood pretty well too. It's a bit of a melancholy tune, that captures the solitary winter atmosphere on the cover perfectly. Listen and download here.

Well that's that for now. If I think of anything else I'll be sure to post it asap. Have a good Halloween.

"Get Going" by Headlights
Wildlife, 2009

"Cruel" by Calexico
Garden Ruin, 2006

"Curs in the Weeds" by Horse Feathers
House With No Home, 2008

unbelievable

I wonder what I've been up to lately? Clearly I haven't taken the time to post anything sensible in quite a while. In my defense I've been reading up on architecture like crazy the last couple of days because if I'm very lucky, we might look into building a new house some time in the near-ish future. There are some seriously cool things out there. I've mostly been interested in finding out more about green architecture that still looks cool (and isn't horribly unaffordable, that last part being kind of a deal-breaker in a lot of cases). But still, there are some really interesting things out there. Especially, and perhaps to some extent surprisingly, in the realm of pre-fabrication. Google Flatpak (among others) and you too, will be amazed. I kid you not. Unfortunately that stuff isn't available in Europe. Actually I've had to discover that a lot of the architecture around these parts (and I'm talking about both green buildings and regular stuff in general) doesn't quite agree with me. Europeans tend to build really robust looking structures and I like things to look light and transparent, which for the most part isn't done here (except for a few very high-profile architect types who won't be doing anything for me personally. Ever). I think the strict building regulations are to blame at least partially, because I have noticed that most of the things I really like are being built in the warmer climes, where of course it's ok to have a simple brick or concrete wall. Whereas here - good luck trying to get your house approved if you try anything like that. Insulation's a bitch.

Alright though, I'm supposed to be writing about music instead of explaining the intricacies of building codes in Europe. Actually another big reason for the lack of music posting has been my continued obsession with film and television. I'm still watching literally everything out there (Mulholland Dr. finally last night and about to start The Wire). But whatever, it's interesting and that's fine. Also I've been having beef with my teachers at school. They're really annoying and, in my humble opinion, not entirely professional, but that is yet another thing I won't be ranting about. I think I'm all ranted out on that for the moment, even though, there is much more ranting to be done. I might get back to it at a future point in time. If you're lucky I won't though.

Now on to the music. I just got my hands on the new T.I. record, but I haven't listened to it yet at all. But I'm sure it'll be good enough. T.I. isn't really in the vein of most of the things I generally post about on here though anyway, so let's just go ahead and skip that discussion.

Since I've been so architecture/film/telly obsessed lately I only have a tiny bit of music to recommend. As per usual it's from betterPropaganda. The first band I have to pitch is Anathallo, who bP tells me is from Minnesota. In any case they have strings!! harhar. So big surprise that I'm telling you to listen to "The River" here. Still, it's a nice song and it's got a great build-up toward the end where things really get into swing. Actually that reminds me of Gomez's "Notice", which I must have written about at some point - except that I just double checked and I have absolutely somehow managed to completely neglect that song. I'm a little annoyed at myself. I'll try to find it somewhere online for you to listen to or if you're feeling enterprising, maybe you can go find it independently. Anyway the point of bringing up Gomez was to comment on the ridiculously good dissonant instrumental section the song has right towards the end, that I completely adore. I've been listening to that song for a long time now and it still rocks.

So moving on, this is pretty old stuff. But I, for some reason, had always steered clear of Calexico, but then I ended up listening to "Alone Again Or", which, it turns out, I think is quite a good tune. It's a cover, but they've spiced it up by adding a really neat Mexican twist. Just hear for yourselves here, I s'pose.

A song by American Analog Set just came on and I hadn't meant to write about it, but it's really great background music. So if you're into that sort of thing. Go here. Oh yeah, the song is called "Hard to Find".

I was going to write about Friendly Fires next. I'm drawing a complete and utter lack about where I found their song "Paris" (it's a remix by Aeroplane and it features Au Revoir Simone actually). So I can't tell you where you can find the song. You can check out Friendly Fires' myspace, but that particular remix isn't on there, only the original "Paris" track is, which is busier than the remix and I like it less. Dag. I lied. The remix is on there. I just don't know how I got the track onto my computer. I'll leave you to figure that one out if you want it too. Ok well we shall swiftly move on to something else.

The final track I wanted to talk about today is Gravenhurst's "The Diver". It's a very quiet, melancholy sort of tune, but I like that in a tune. Listen and download here, if you so choose.

All the tangents I went on in posting today has reminded me that there's a veritable plethora of music I have yet to talk about on here (namely Gomez, Au Revoir Simone and many others) and it's made me a little nutso just thinking about it. Meaning I will stop now.

I will, however, leave you with this word of advice. This harks back to the green architecture stream of consciousness: go check out Inhabitat. I've linked to it in my essentials list and it truly is a great website. It's most definitely not limited to architecture, although it has some exceedingly cool things of that sort. But essentially it'll tell you about all kinds of exciting and more importantly fabulously cool green products and intiviatives out there. Explore and find out. I hope you'll like it. I'm quasi-obsessed.

And on a final note. Seriously. If anyone has something really cool that I should be listening to, please post. There has been a sort of dearth of new music in my life lately, mostly on account of my having to borrow my sister's woefully small 2GB Zen V Plus (which is currently maxed out with a few choice tunes) until I get my awesome new 32GB Zen X-Fi (for 200 Euros which translates to $20 less than I'd be paying if I got it in the States - which incidentally, is a first in the history of shopping - I mean, something being cheaper in Europe than in the US, it still seems too good to be true). Anyway the point is, I've been yearning for some new things to listen to. Help me out a little, will ya.