These guys have that great slightly-polished-chaos sound of bands like the Dandy Warhols and the White Stripes. Rock on!
Category: Heavy Rotation
Music Worth Overplaying
Music is a gift of God…
…to quote the baptist preacher in a Pop Will Eat Itself sample. When Sufjan Stevens’ “Riffs and Variations on a Single Note for…” transitioned perfectly into The The’s “Dogs of Lust” on the old iPhone, it was so beautiful that God had to be involved.
9.5 Owl City – Ocean Eyes
This beautiful atmospheric pop is lifting me up during my job search. It’s like Death Cab For Cutie’s Benjamin Gibbard’s optimistic younger brother discovered a magic electronics studio. It’s really polished, as in Top 40, computer-stabilized-vocals polished, but it is so well crafted that it works out. Good fun!
9.0 Dandy Warhols: The Last High, Godless
The Dandies are great, and these two songs alone can keep you zenned out. Gotta get their new album soon…
Keep an eye on Craig Venter
I’m spending a little time on a side project involving blogs and their RSS feeds. I’ve posted before (in 2005!) about unplugging from the endless evil RSS feeds of the hyperactive interwebs, and I stepped too close again and got sucked back in…
Some of the interesting fodder I’ve dug up on this last trip (with a tip of the hat to Andrea for finding a related Newsweek article)…
- This guy is getting really good at hacking together new forms of life…
- …and may solve our immediate energy problems in doing so….
- Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of solar energy info
- Mucho mashups – mixing Death Cab, Nitzer Ebb, Bladerunner and Journey is just… no words…
- Classic web shows, old and new
- All crazy kinds of ancient sweet awesome PWEI video, whoop whoop!
The interwebs is DEEP these days… :P …now give me my life back!
9.5 Death Cab For Cutie – I Will Possess Your Heart
9.0 Incubus – Dig
Chase what’s important to you in life. Play this while you do it. Sometimes optimism is alright! :>
Other times, sarcasm does the trick, ala Cracker’s Teen Angst. Here‘s an interview with Cracker dude David Lowery, where he gives a nod to Kurt Vonnegut for his “irony and humor”, and says “I think Bush has done more for energy conservation than Clinton ever did just by screwing everything up”. I’m currently reading Vonnegut’s Jail Bird, it’s Vonnegut so I don’t have to tell you it’s good.
9.0 Juliet – Waiting
This sweet song has a shadow of the heartache of Matt Johnson and Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Kingdom of Rain’ duet. Keep them both tucked away for that next post-fight pity party… Then when you make up put on Beck’s ‘I Think I’m In Love’ or The Dandy Warhols’ ‘Bohemian Like You’…
8.5 VH1’s Nocturnal State, etc.
OK, I guess I’m officially getting old, to be interested in a show on the “more mature” music video channel. Or am I just incurably immature for watching music videos at all? Age is so confusing these days. Is 40 the new 30? And 30 the new 20? Or do we all just remain children in today’s consumer-oriented society?
Anyway, I recorded the show on the MythTV box and it is actually watchable if you turn on “auto-skip commercials” (otherwise, definitely NOT). The following have me humming all day:
- Audioslave: Doesn’t Remind Me
- Nickelback: If Everyone Cared
- John Mayer: Waiting on the World to Change
- Gorillaz: Feel Good Inc.
- Sophie Ellis-Bextor: You Get Yours
- Paulo Nutini: New Shoes
- Juliet: Ride The Pain
I guess some of that comes from MTV, so I guess I’m still young (immature? delusional?)… and some comes from elsewhere… whatever… :P
9.0 Human League – All I Ever Wanted
As a continuation of the 80’s nostalgia theme of Doug’s recent mix, I dug up this gem from a couple years ago. I have a few others that might make a nice response to Doug’s mix.
Still, I have to say that one of the songs Doug chose, New Order’s Krafty, is the pinnacle. It has had the replayability of Blue Monday, with no less than 4 gorgeous sweet bridges across the verses and choruses filled with upbeat lyrics.
Yes, nostalgia can have a saccharin aftertaste, but not on these nice new sweet goodies – pure sugar. HaHA!