YouTube Disco

Looks like YouTube now has an answer to Pandora and Last.fm. It's called Disco and it essentially does the same thing as Pandora: pick a band and it creates a play list including your selected band and other similar offerings. You can modify it once it starts playing too. It's pretty good and what's especially great about this is that you can use it even if you're outside the US, which can't be said of the other two services. Have at it:

YouTube: Disco

Bird

Found this maybe two days ago. I'm a huge fan of Andrew Bird and this little gem from pitchfork, is pretty awesome.



The original is here.

Post Christmas Pre New Year Goodies

I meant to post this on Christmas day, but turns out that having family over ensures that you are to busy to remember about your blog. There are worse things though and I've got three songs to share with you now. So let's get to it:

I heard the first two songs on a TV show and in a movie. I've been watching Joss Whedon's Dollhouse since it started and it's been pretty underwhelming, to be honest, but as of late it has been much improved. In fact the last few episodes have been pretty exciting, it's too bad it's been cancelled already. In any case, I think two weeks ago they had a really great montage at the end of the episode using Greg Laswell's cover of the song "Your Ghost", originally by Kristin Hersh. I found it here, but I have a feeling it'll be gone soon. I hope you're lucky enough to get it in time. The song and other by Laswell are a little bit more pop, than I normally listen to, that's not a bad thing in this case though. I have a couple more Laswell songs on my computer, but have no clue where they're from. I just saw there's one called "Amazed" over at betterPropaganda. I've never heard it before, so I can't tell you whether it's any good.

The second song is Nick Drake's "'Cello Song". For anyone who's seen the wonderful The Blind Side, you've heard this song in the title sequence. "'Cello Song" is on Drake's 1969 album Five Leaves Left. I actually first heard Nick Drake quite a few years ago on Gilmore Girls. The show used the superb "Pink Moon" (off the eponymous album released in 1972) and I've been listening to that track on and off ever since then. "'Cello Song" and "Pink Moon" both feature simple arrangements allowing Drake's voice to take center stage. I'll post links to the songs on youtube here, since I can't find any place where they are freely available.





Ok the last song is "Your Rocky Spine" by the Great Lake Swimmers. My good friend Pixie told me about this Canadian band over a year ago, but I never really got around to checking them out until a while ago. I have absolutely no idea where I got the song from, but you're in luck because Google led me to this page, where you can get it too. The song's got a banjo and beautiful harmonies, it's a bit melancholy, but in the best way. Have a listen.

"Your Ghost" by Greg Laswell
Covers EP, 2009

"Amazed" by Greg Laswell
Through Toledo, 2006

"Your Rocky Spine" by Great Lake Swimmers
Ongiara, 2007

Homemade

So I'm pretty sure I haven't posted anything since Halloween or some such and I'm just about to head off to Munich for the weekend, but I just heard/saw "White Noise" by Lauren O'Connell over at the J-Walk Blog and I figured I should at least post this before I leave. O'Connell did the song and video in GarageBand and iMovie. It's pretty incredible. I hope you like.

Sufjan Stevens Remixed

They posted about this at the A.V. Club: a Montreal-based producer called Tor remixed a couple tracks off of Sufjan Stevens' album Illinoise and a few other records with Aesop Rock, Outkast and some other artists I'm not familiar with. So far I've only heard the "Star of Wonder/None Shall Pass" remix, but it's really cool, to say the least. The best part is you can get all of the songs for free right here.

In the meantime you can listen to "Star of Wonder/None Shall Pass" right here, it's over on youtube:



"Star of Wonder/None Shall Pass (Tor Remix)" by Sufjan Stevens feat. Aesop Rock
Illinoize, 2009

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

Camphor and then some

I just realized that I never wrote about the wonderful song "The Sweetest Tooth" by Camphor before. The song has been on my list of staples that I listen to very frequently for a very long time and it's really odd that it should have slipped my mind to post about it on here. It's got all the hallmarks of my favorite kind of song: Strings and smoky vocals. If you like that kind of stuff too I suggest you find some good headphones or turn your stereo up really loud and have a listen.

Because I like the Camphor track above so much, I decided to see what similar tunes betterPropaganda would recommend to me. Turns out The Black Heart Procession is one of the bands it came up with. I'm glad too. "Not Just Words" isn't quite upbeat, but it's sweeping, which can be better. Someone over at the site aptly described their sound as "beautifully bleak and brooding indie rock with a dark side". If that sounds interesting to you, listen here.

There are several songs at the link above. I haven't listened to all of them. "Exit Out" came on randomly. It's an instrumental track and has some of the same qualities as "Not Just Words". Listen and download here. I think I like this one even better than "Not Just Words". When an instrumental track is done well, it's such a pleasure to listen to. I wasn't even really paying attention to the music that was playing on my computer when I heard to song the first time, but I suppose it was good enough to make me stop what I was doing and actually listen to it. There you go. I hope you concur with my feelings about "Exit Out".

I heard Califone for the first time while watching Stranger Than Fiction (which stars Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Emma Thompson). The soundtrack included a song of theirs, whose name I can't recall currently, that was quite pleasant. I found "Wingbone" over at betterPropaganda and I like it even better. It's a very slow and soothing song. It almost feels like you're sitting around with a few good friends jamming. Listen and download here. Incidentally, there's another song available at the same spot, but I cannot report anything as to its quality, you'll have to listen yourselves.

"The Sweetest Tooth" by Camphor
Drawn to Dust, 2008

"Not Just Words" by The Black Heart Procession
The Spell, 2006

"Exit Out" by The Black Heart Procession
Badman Winter 2005 Sampler, 2005

"Wingbone" by Califone
Heron King Blues, 2004