covers playlist

someone at work challenged me to come up with a covers playlist when i criticized hers. i would like to say that i think that this playlist blows hers out of the water and with a cheeky reference to all of the gram parsons/burrito brothers stuff she's been playing lately. the dinosaur jr. one isn't the best, but i find it incredibly entertaining and i just couldn't pass on the chance to line up these two covers from the same time period. plus the belly one is exquisite if you ask me.

song- artist- album (original artist)
1. anyway that you want me- spiritualized®- the complete works (the troggs)
2. sailor- the brian jonestown massacre- bravery, repitition and noise (the cryan shames)
3. if i stay too long- thee oh sees- raven sings the blues compilation vol. 2 (the creation)
4. alphabet street- the jesus & mary chain- come on (prince)
5. lonesome town- holly golightly- singles roundup (ricky nelson)
6. hot burrito #1- belly- sweet ride (the flying burrito brothers)
7. hot burrito #2- dinosaur jr.- green mind (the flying burrito brothers)
8. golden hair- hope sandoval & the warm inventions- golden hair (syd barrett)
9. look for me (i'll be around)- neko case- blacklisted (kadie lester)
10. nightime- elliott smith- empty bottle 2000 bootleg (big star)
11. some things last a long time- beach house- devotion (daniel johnston)
12. listen, the snow is falling- galaxie 500- this is our music (yoko ono)
13. honey- mogwai- tribute to spacemen 3 (spacemen 3)
14. when tomorrow hits- spacemen 3- recurring (mudhoney)
15. walking & falling/over & over- spectrum- war sucks 12" (laurie anderson)
16. song to the siren- this mortal coil (or cocteau twins if you prefer)- it'll end in tears

diary 10.15.10- cloudbusting

diary 10.15.10

song- artist- album
1. bad vibrations- the black angels- phosphene dream
2. catholicked- dum dum girls- catholicked 12"
3. mary, please- the brian jonestown massacre- take it from the man
4. the black angel's death song- the velvet underground- paris bataclan '72
5. going down slow- the animals- animalism
6. lazy line painter jane- belle & sebastian- lazy line painter jane
7. plastic palace people- scott walker- scott 2
8. cloudbusting- kate bush- hounds of love
9. torch song- the walkmen- lisbon
10. feeling of gaze- hope sandoval & the warm inventions- bavarian fruit bread
11. slow life- grizzly bear (w/ victoria legrand)- new moon soundtrack (i swear i didn't buy it)
12. cry to me- solomon burke- definitive soul collection
13. mogwai fear satan- mogwai- special moves
14. he would have laughed- deerhunter- halcyon digest
15. 10 mile stereo- beach house- zebra 12"

'i woke up in the middle of the night...'

i've managed to steal away a little alone time here at the filling station in kansas city- among my favourite coffee shops ever. the last two days have been a bit chaotic to say the least. each day seems like an eternity and yet it's gone so quickly. i'm going to do my best to relax today and not worry about anything that's going down tonight (which would be me playing the music at my sister's wedding). it's been a very fun trip, though, and aleksa and katelyn (who came with us) seem to be having a lot of fun and it's been so nice to be away from chicago for a while (as short as the duration is). i'm flush with money (for now, anyway) and it's been nice to be on a trip and do pretty much anything i've felt like doing and not having to worry about money as i saved $300 for this trip, not including my share of the stipend that my dad gave us.
every time i come back to kansas city my experience seems to be completely different from the previous time. last time was not very nostalgic and neither is this time. i kind of feel the things about this town that i am used to remembering are kind of slipping away. kind of sad, but also probably to be expected and probably to continue as i get older. it has been fun seeing things through the eyes of the people we brought with us- so much about it that we find so humdrum that we probably shouldn't.
one thing about weddings that i always find so fascinating is the sheer number of relatives who come out who you forget about. so many.
i'm looking forward to getting home tomorrow- i hope that we don't get as late of a start. i could honestly do with another day away, but them's the breaks! it'd be so nice to be able to go to the brunch that my parents are throwing tomorrow and just relax for the rest of the day before hitting the road, but it's just not in the cards. i'm fairly certain that i should be fine from the whole financial standpoint- something i've been pretty worried about as i was hoping against hope that i'd have some money to pay my credit card bill for my train ticket and also have the $100 that i'm missing out on from not working today or tomorrow. i suppose if that doesn't quite pan out it doesn't quite pan out. big deal. financial stress time is beginning- i've got stefanie's birthday in mid-november (as well as another wedding a few days before that- in chicago fortunately), my dad's birthday in december and then, of course, christmas. somehow i have to save enough money to buy gifts, come to kansas city and have fun and hopefully not be completely destitute when i get back. the silver lining is that two of the days i'll be here i wouldn't have been working anyway even if i stayed in chicago for the holiday. plus right when i get back i have two extra shifts that i signed up for, so i should be golden- kind of a 'hit the ground running' situation, but it'll be fine. the new year will be all about looking for a new job. i've been looking already, but i feel like once the holidays are over is when i'll be able to really put in all of my effort. i might lay the groundwork before i leave town.
i suppose that that's enough for now. end of transmission.

ye olde clip-clop

i've been pretty busy since last i posted. i've been working on the near-mythical animated video for 'falling stars.' i'm going to put together a digital single for that song to co-incide with releasing the video. will it be a big deal? eh, not too sure... the video is looking pretty cool thus far- a lot of the animated bits are a bit loopy in nature (as in repetitive). also i've done some layering and surprisingly everything is looking pretty nice. it's all been done in a very childlike manner and spirit. basically it's an animated video of my primitive line-drawings. the 'invisible against the sun' cover makes an appearance, for example.
i'd like to get it finished this weekend. that'd be pretty boss, but also there is still stuff to draw and tons of crap to scan in. i'm pretty much done with the wedding music stuff now- have to finish notating out a single part. should take 20 minutes or so. at the most. looking forward to it. stefanie and i are going to have to do some pretty serious practicing in the next week. we're going to have friday to run-through everything again and that should be good. stefanie's mainly nervous because she isn't quite comfortable with a few of the songs yet, which isn't a huge problem because she now has them all on her ipod and it's a question of listening to them a bunch. we're doing 'feeling of gaze' by hope sandoval and that song is proving to be quite a tough one. i have trouble with it myself. the way it's sung is a bit odd as well.
i'm looking forward to not having to worry about putting this stuff together once this whole thing is finished. i'm looking forward to playing it as well. i'm pretty bummed that we couldn't get a shalloboi show together- that's a major drag. why the fuck couldn't anyone play a show with us? if we'd been able to get two more bands we would've been able to play at the riot room. fuck! now it's too late in the game to do anything about it at all. i'm getting very tired of dealing with flaky friends when trying to book shows. how is it possible that everyone is able to be so ridiculously picky and play way more shows than we do? not. fucking. fair. but i suppose that no one ever said that life was supposed to be fair.
in the aftermath of all of the brandon and chris ridiculousness i was at work the other day and realized, to my great delight, that i hadn't thought about either one of them even once for several days. it was a very validating moment. no regrets, no looking back. i am now anxious to get a new violist and get back to work. we have that 'christmas song, pt. iv' to finish up and i'm trying to get going on having a show in december. so far i've asked a couple of bands to play, but it's fairly similar in the realm of foot-dragging and whatnot. i dunno. maybe we should just play at cole's by ourselves- it'd probably be a bit easier to get together and we had a really good turnout last time. it's kind of a headache to get people to play shows with us and i don't understand why- i'm beginning to think that it just ties in with that whole musician/flaky thing that we don't seem to have. similar to the fact that we are always show up to load-in on time (even though it's kind of an unspoken rule that you aren't really supposed to) and whatnot. that's always been the joke between stefanie and me. wacky.
anyway, i'm back on the mogwai train hardcore right now- that new live album is spectacular. about as good of a live document of the band as anyone could ever reasonably expect. hallelujah!

swoop

things are starting to level out- which i am relieved about. i think everyone's going to be better off for all of the drama that's gone down. the music is coming together quite nicely as well, i must say. soon it'll be finished and it'll be time to go. i'm looking forward to doing the wedding but also looking forward to being finished with all of this stuff and being able to get back to doing more shalloboi stuff- the christmas show, for example.
some more new records arrived in the mail yesterday- one is the second (and fucking excellent) telescopes record- a truly underrated and overlooked band from the wasteland of the early 90's shoegazer movement. in a lot of ways i think that the telescopes may have been the best besides my bloody valentine in that they really mined their own territory and did so while incorporating a seamless 60's vibe, not to mention making some of the most beautiful music from that era. listen to 'all a dreams' or 'spaceships.' also 'flying' is an amazing song. i bought the record on vinyl from bomp and it's on orange vinyl, sounds fantastic and has a cool remix/semi-instrumental version of 'flying' tacked onto the end entitled 'tornado.' nice!
the other new record that arrived is the new mogwai live record- 'special moves.' how is it that i find it so easy to forget mogwai only to rediscover them anew periodically for the last seven or so years. i don't even own 'the hawk is howling' yet. 'special moves' is a highly recommended live album and actually does a great job of capturing them live. i haven't had time to watch 'burning' yet (which came in the package as well- totally looking forward to that one). highlights of the set for me are all of the 'i know you are but what am i' (which i saw them play in 2006 or 2007- can't remember), 'like herrod' (how have i managed to see them three times and they've never played this- it's a beautiful beast), 'mogwai fear satan' (as always), '2 rights makes 1 wrong' (also saw them play this one and it was fantastic- this version is probably even better) and i've always loved 'cody' even though they've played it every time i've seen them. thank heaven mogwai exists. i don't know how i don't spend as much of my time listening to them as i used to- they are truly exquisite. such a great mix of fragility, beauty, loudness and brutality.
besides all of this i am now in a holding pattern of permanent burnout. as the shops continue to be slammed on a daily basis and the staff at the shop i work at continues to be worn too thin business still somehow continues to grow and decisions continue to be made in a really poor manner and long-term thinking continues to be pushed to the side. i even find myself stepping in more often when snap decisions need to be made and taking on extra responsibility despite the fact that i have no interest in anything resembling management or authority. the sad thing is that i'm making enough money that working there is still too lucrative and i'm afraid that if i went to another coffee shop i wouldn't be as well-off. everyone's hours got extended too so that'll mean even more money. despite all of this i lose my patience in the front so quickly nearly every day. i don't think i'm going to be able to leave anytime before christmas as it looks like i might not have to have any shifts covered as we might be closed christmas eve, christmas day and the day after christmas (it's a sunday) and i'd rather not have to try to deal with that first thing upon getting a new job. i'm hoping for a fresh start in 2011.