Single Song Theory, Part Three

The final installment (maybe) in a list of one-offs that I have collected over the years.

Single Song Theory Part 3:

The Blue Wrath – I, Monster/Your Fucking Sunny Day – Lambchop/Dear Confessor – Immaculate Machine/Gin & Juice – The Gourds/Joke – Boo Hewerdine/Lariat – Steve Malkmus/Dumb Ways to Die – Tangerine Kitty/You, Me & the Bourgeoisie – The Submarines/Start Again – Lovers Electric/She’s Fetching – Big Dipper/Lucio Starts Fires – Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong/Girls & Boys in Love – The Rumblestrips/Storm in a Teacup – Milburn/Nightlife – Ms. Magician/Gangsta – Tune-Yards/Lovesuit – Hilotrons/Tosta Mista – Hooded Fang/I am the Stereo – El Cento/When I Go Out with Artists – Crash Test Dummies/Apartment Wrestling – Maximum Balloon/ Watch that Girl Destroy Me – Possum Dixon/California – Phantom Planet

Single Song Theory, Part Two

One song, one artist. Why? See the previous mix, Single Song Theory, Part One.

Enjoy!

Single Song Theory Part Two:

Archie Marry Me – Alvvays/If You Didn’t See Me (Then You Weren’t On the Dancefloor) – Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr./The New International – So So Modern/The Lottery – The Stepkids/Jamaica – Theme Park/The General Synopsis – Braces Tower/Fraud in the 80s – Mates of State/Light of Love – Music Go Music/Benny and the Jetts – TV Girl/Fashion Crisis Hits New York – The Frank and Walters/Blue Song – Mint Royal/Impossible – Shout Out Louds/Rio – Hey Marseilles/ The Sweater – Meryn Caldwell/(This is the Dream) Of Evan and Chan – Dntel/Super Duper Rescue Heads – Deerhoof/You Can’t Hurry Love – The Concretes/ Sleepy Tigers – Her Space Holiday

Single Song Theory, Part One

The included and forthcoming mixes are based on songs/artists that I only have one of. This is probably because:

• I heard the song in a movie or television show
• I like the song but I haven’t made (or won’t make) an investment in the band
• I heard the song on a CD that came with Mojo or Uncut magazine and I like it

Enjoy:

Single Song Theory Part 1

Into the Galaxy – Midnight Juggernauts/Golden Skans – Klaxons/Death – White Lies/They Broke the Speed of Light – The Late BP Helium/Before We Were Brittle – Say Hi/No Light Left – Snowfight in the City Center/We Could Be Blood – Young Knives/Movies of Antarctica – Stars of Track and Field/Tonight the Streets are Ours – Richard Hawley/Judy Staring at the Sun – Catherine Wheel with Tanya Donnelly/There is a Light – Dum Dum Girls/What Did My Lover Say – Wolf Parade/Starlett Johanssen – The Teenagers/Caroline – CITIZENS!/ International Heroes – The British Lions

 

19 Characters in Search of a Soundtrack

Presented for you to enjoy. “19 Characters in Search of s Soundtrack” is a mix in 3 parts, loosely based on a radio recording of WXXP, Pittsburgh in 1988:

19 Characters In Search of a Soundtrack, Part 1 – David Bowie, Ashes to Ashes (live at the BBC)/Django Django, Reflections/My Favorite, Party Crashers/Temples, Mesmerize/Chairlift, I Belong in Your Arms/The Bodeans, Say About Love

19 Characters in Search of a Soundtrack, Part 2 – R.E.M., Life and How to Live It/Violent Femmes, Happy New Year Next Year/Laura Marling, False Hope/Sleater-Kinney, New Wave/St. Vincent, Bad Tina/Max Jury, Black Metal

19 Characters in Search of a Soundtrack, Part 3 – Belle & Sebastian, Perfect Couples/Paul Weller, Dangerous Age/Stars, Turn it Up and Elevator Love Letter/The New Pornographers, Backstairs/Eels, Fresh Blood/Mogwai, Teenage Exorcists/Soft Cell, Tainted Love-Where Did Our Love Go?

Crapocalypse/Vommegedon

Almost, but not quite.

A few weeks ago, I got food poisoning (or as the layman refer to it the Crapocalypse/Vommegedon). It was truly awful. I tried to make it home, but couldn’t and had to call 911 (the first time in my life). They gave me three bags of saline, morphine, zofran and maybe some other things (I was in no state to question them). For 5 days, I ate jello, soup and drank the green fountain of youth they call Gatorade.

This is not the first time I was overcome with the urge to hurl in both directions during my birthday month. Most of the other times were alcohol or thai food related.

And yet, like most people in this predicament, I felt like the world was coming to an end. I wonder what it is that brings us all irrationally to that conclusion? The fever? The lack of control? The smell?

Even though I am back to (almost) full health, I still feel a bit tired sometimes. I guess that is just a tiny reminder of what it is like to survive the Crapocalypse/Vommegedon that we all face in life.

Engineers: Crawl From The Wreckage

 The Mountain Goats: Absolute Lithops Effect

(Shameless) Self Promotion

A little while ago, Thee Mightee Kittens got their paws on some music software for the iPad. Today, those kittens and I have created some fur-soaked tunes. Here are those tunes, for your enjoyment/our shame.

Thee Mightee Kittens – Fall in Love

Thee Mightee Kittens – Black Infiniti Follows Blue Nissan

Thee Mightee Kittens – How do I get stripper glitter out of my hair?

Thee Mightee Kittens – Gravity, Saint

Thee Mightee Kittens – Sour, Conniption & Fibs

Thee Mightee Kittens – Talking in a Dead Language

Thee Mightee Kittens – Tall Buildings

Thee Mightee Kittens – Heart Out Yo Body (Sucka)

Mal de Ojo (The Evil Eye)

The superstitious amongst us protect themselves from the negativity and evil in the universe a myriad of ways. For many this manifests itself as an affected sort of obsessive compulsive disorder. But for others, it takes the form of talismans that protect us from evil, necklaces and charms which have been given to us or we have purchased at a kiosk in the mall or while on vacation in the caribbean – designed to protect us from those wishing ill upon us or the dreaded “evil eye.”

The Evil Eye, or the physical manifestation of online trolling, is commonplace in all cultures and dates back to ancient Greece. Back then, many thought that those who had blue or green eyes wielded the curse. Now we realize that anyone with enough jealousy or envy can push those vibes out into the universe. And that sometimes those people go further, taking actions to deliberately hurt or injure another person.

Last week, I started to think about all of the talismans I have ever worn. And then one of my mala bracelets broke. I didn’t catch it on anything. It just broke as I was putting it on in the morning, all the little beads cascading into the drawer. This had never happened before. So I did a little research. Apparently, one reason why a mala can break, apart from wear and tear, is that this little bracelet has taken the hit for me, sacrificing its little beads to protect me from the evil in the universe. It unnerved me to think that someone had wished bad things on me. And that I was out $28 dollars. And that my wrist was missing something. I like to wear things in threes (again OCD). I was thinking about a lot of things.

And what happens now? Have I been spared from the universe? Have these little lucky things protected me from the world and those that would wish harm on me and my family? Superstition is powerful. Based on belief, it can make you very paranoid. But it can also make you feel strong or smart or safe. Hey, whatever gets you through the day.

The Cure – Mr. Pink Eyes

Franz Ferdinand – Evil Eye

This Year’s Automaton

Ten years ago, I stopped smoking. Now, I’m not going to say something sanctimonious that I feel good everyday and it’s the right thing to do in this world. Nor am I going to say that I don’t miss it, the smell and the cost. I stopped. That’s it.

In that time, smoking has become a banned substance in bars and places where people gather, where they used to talk and flirt and bond over movies and music over an awful scent of tobacco. The alternative is vapor, a nicotine substitute that sounds as hollow as the brief wisp of smoke it creates. This vapor has turned the act of smoking into a robotic necessity, a desire for the “drug” we associate with high school bathrooms, backstage areas and insomnia. It is now a private act, yet one we can now perform everywhere from offices to low lit bars (for now anyway). It is lonliness in a room full of people, some of them dying to connect if only someone had a pack and a lighter to ease the sting and lubricate the conversation toward how great that new band is or how that director has just lost it completely or that they had the worst day of their lives and would like someone to talk to.

A few people I know at my job have taken to “smoke breaks” that are anything but. They walk, they sit and they connect. It’s not that the smokers at my job don’t do the same thing. But we should be taking the traditions and the ritual of smoking and applying it to a new paradigm, removing the vapor that hangs in the air for a brief moment and replacing it with the solid connection that we all used to feel. Only without the tar.

I encourage you to connect over the the fact that Bob Mould’s first solo album turns 25 this year. And that his words and music are still as vital and solid than they have ever been.

Last Year’s Model

In June 2009, I started this little blog in the hopes of exposing people to music that I liked and writing about a few things I disliked (Honda CRV and Arcade Fire, I’m looking at you). And thanks to a syndicated blog site known as elbo.ws, I was able to share my love and some scorn with a new audience. Sadly, elbo.ws shuttered its site in November of last year. And up until this month, I was still trying to figure out what I would do with this site. Should it go away? Should it change? Should I just keep at it?

In 1988, I was trying to become a DJ at WPTS in Pittsburgh. One of the requirements was to submit your own demo tape. And the only way to do that was to sit for hours in the studio’s AM station room. The AM station didn’t have much in the way of albums (yes it was mostly LPs and carts then) or listenership. I don’t even know if anyone could pick up the station, let alone hear me trying to lower my voice an octave, create segues or play records with enormous scratches in them. But I kept at it because I enjoyed it and hoped that one day someone would hear a song I liked, listen to it and make that song part of their world. For the record, I think my favorite song at that time was probably something by the Cure.

In that spirit, I am restarting this blog and will try to update it at least once per week. I hope that if you are interested, you will download the songs I upload here, listen to them and learn more about the artists. Or maybe just ignore this blog. My hope is for the former.

With that in mind, I would like to post some of the songs that I “found” at the end of 2013. I thought of doing a “best of” list, but I have already posted a majority of my favorites in past blog posts (Secret History, I’m winking at you). And since people always seem to discount the last few months of the year as not being list worthy, I hope to champion some great songs that you might not have heard or been able to download. I hope you enjoy them. Me and Thee Mightee Kittens are not going anywhere. Please tune in.

Young Knives – We Could Be Blood

Andrew Bird – Pulaski at Night

David Bowie – Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix by James Murphy for the DFA)

Prefab Sprout – Billy

David Byrne (Peter Gabriel Cover) – I Don’t Remember

I am the thief. The waffle thief.

This wave of nostalgia brought to you by the 1980s. The 1980s – we didn’t have email and we tucked our pants into our socks.

Hipsway – The Honeythief

The Motels – Remember the Nights

Deacon Blue – Raintown