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Wednesday, September 27, 2006

today, part two (actually now today = yesterday)

so i had this all written and ready to go yesterday, and it just didn't happen. i hope you enjoyed the videos. but enough about that. here's the post:
and now for the music.
this showed up in my inbox yesterday (and from the looks of things, a lot of other mp3blogger's inboxes). like i've said before, sometimes this sort of thing ends with me wanting to plug my ears. but this time, not so much. in fact, i am going to strongly urge you to check this band out further...that is, if you enjoy feeling fresh like a good sleep, waking up to the first day of spring. yeah. take that all you pseudo-intellectual nonsensical metaphor laden blogs*. anyway, back on to the music, more specifically, the music of can joann. in all seriousnes though, i really like this band. and it isn't something i can put my finger on. they seem pretty awesome, and i hope that their live show translates well, because i would love to see them (if they would ever come to hamilton...)

after the seizure is gone
indecisionsway
lady luck


and because i feel sort of bad about yesterday, here's that crazy ryan adams rap song (and here's my apparently obligatory "ha ha ha, balsa wood" comment on the whole thing):

look who got a website

*please note, i actually enjoy these blogs, i am just amused that an entire article was written on the matter.
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try to remember everything i've passed...

here's some video nostalgia, and later (when ezarchive decides to work) there will be another post with some emailed to me music. (please note, i only post the stuff that i LIKE...but the more stuff you send, the more chance there is you'll send something i like)






1 comments

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

random 5 from the download file

once again, all the thinking is done for you. basically, so is the work, since these songs all came as a result of my trawling the wild world of mp3 blogs. what happens in this (because i know you all like to be spoonfed and have your hands held): i download songs from a variety of places to test them out. then, often times, i end up buying the album. or, if i am feeling that very special combination of busy and lazy, the songs sit in a file i have creatively named "downloads" and then eventually i sit for about an hour or two just listening and trying to remember where exactly those songs came from originally. today, you get to be part of the magic. today i put the whole thing on, set it on random and pressed play. the following are the first 5 songs that came on. any thoughts? my guess is no, like i said, i'm here to do all the thinking for you.

bell x1 - flame (chicken lips mix)
the frames - perfect opening line
veruca salt - circular trend
the awkward stage - morons are winning (please note that, hilariously, this is classified as an import by amazon canada)
mactronics - madlymantics
1 comments

Monday, September 25, 2006

new faves, old faves, and a little wtf action

read the title of today's post. no really. read it. got it? good. that's pretty much (well it's ENTIRELY) the recap of today's post. as well, a little bit of my television viewing last night (note brothers and sisters is the wtf to my rewatching of season 1 of the office and season 3 of arrested development...i also caught the premiere of jericho again, which i like mostly because, until i see heroes tonight, it seems to have the most potential for zombies or ninjas) anyway, back to music. the cloud room. if you weren't into them over a year ago when the song first dropped on the mp3blogosphere, well, you were maybe a little slow on the uptake. i am attempting to remedy the situation. i could write a missive about the band, but someone already explained the whole thing better here. yes, it's pitchfork, so take it all with a pretentious grain of salt (i hear it's essential to a hipster's diet).
then there's the new song by the postmarks which is creating a buzz, apparently. i mean, if you judge solely by aggregator rankings, anyway. here's your assignment for today's post:

1) compare and contrast the aims, goals and mp3s of evidence presented herein by both the postmarks and the cloud room.

2) which group do you feel was more successful in tapping into the x factor that seems to matter only to people who read and write mp3 blogs?

3) wtf is up with the new jet single? i am pretty sure i don't like it...bonus points if you can correctly predict what band/era they will rip off next. extra special bonus points if you can tell me why sloan doing that doesn't bother me nearly as much.

the cloud room - hey now now (not to be confused with the mid/late 90s song of the same name by swirl 360)
the postmarks - goodbye
jet - come on come on
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Friday, September 22, 2006

bakers half dozen

it's the end of the week. i'm tired. you're tired. we've all been counting down the seconds to friday night since the crack of dawn on monday. at some point, we're probably all going to need a nap. but then what? how do we wake up and face this weekend that we've been looking forward to? well, i will always stand by music as being the answer to all your needs. why these songs? no real reason (although in the case of the sonic youth track, i dare you to try and stay in bed if that's the song you're using to wake up to). so here it is, a somewhat eclectic mix of music to get your ass in gear, before you waste your entire weekend watching the discovery channel.

rinocerose - my demons (feat. mark gardener)
sonic youth - drunken butterfly
dj shadow - six days (soulwax remix)
danger mouse & jemini - take care of business (feat. j-zone-bke)
test icicles - what's your damage (alan braxe fred falke remix)
the fratellis - henrietta
ben folds five - steven's last night in town
1 comments

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

i got four on it?

today there's a fourpack with absolutely no tie in. the songs have nothing to do with one another, and in some cases, putting on after another on a mix tape would kill the mood dead. for real. maybe you're into that sort of thing, but personally i find it to be a bit obnoxious. anyway, these songs are best enjoyed seperately. but i promise they will be enjoyed. i will also fully disclose that at least one of these songs is here mostly because of gratuitous swearing. mostly because that's my state of mind lately. again, i urge you to give me some direction as to what you would like to see here for the big 100th post brouhaha. again, i reiterate the cat tears threat. ok enough with the pleas. listen to these songs. enjoy them. but enjoy them seperately, unless you want to jolt your friends and loved ones.

The Octopus Project/Black Moth Super Rainbow - lollipopsichord
lady sovereign - hoodie (spank rock remix)
the changes - when i wake
be your own pet - bunk trunk skunk
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Tuesday, September 19, 2006

an admission of guilt

ok, i have to come clean about today's post. i'm not trying. really, i'm not. 2 weeks in, and i'm still sorting out how to juggle this thing with work and school and just...life. i promise i will get better at it, and you will all reap the benefits. i do have a request though. in a few days, it will be our 100th post here at ydb. i kind of want to do something semi-special. it was suggested awhile ago that i post a list of the 5-10 albums that changed my life. well, i could do that (and most likely will at some point), but for a 100th post it seems remarkably self-indulgent.so i guess my request then would be this: do you have any requests? i mean, i have some hilarious stuff just sitting around waiting to be posted. and i am threatening right now, that if no one has any better suggestions, cat tears may make an appearance. (and if you don't have a clue about what i am talking about...well, trust me, you might not want to know. i might not want you to know). anyway, yes, requests. and always, here's some music. some of which has been kicking about my harddrive for a few days/weeks/months. some of which is fitting for the time of year. if you want to make a game of figuring any of that out, go nuts.

page france - chariot
what made milwaukee famous - idecide
the polyphonic spree - lithium (yes, it's a nirvana cover)
1 comments

Monday, September 18, 2006

how to dance your ass off: a practical, how-to guide

this post should have gone live when i had a break at 12:30 today, but ezarchive was not being cooperative...
1) find a wide variety of music to listen to, at least 2-3 different genres should be represented. this enables you to not get bored, and also appeals to the largest audience. sometimes it is better to have a vague idea about how to proceed with this step before moving on to step 2. your mileage may vary.
2) locate large quantities of alcohol, but be sure to a) know where to draw your stupid line and b) pace yourself. it's no fun to be so drunk you can't function (and your moves will suffer accordingly) and also, if you get drunk faster than everyone else, you can be certain they are mocking your big move that in your mind, looks like it came straight from a video. please note that this does not include ironic dance moves, as pulling out the electric slide will always have it's time and place.
3) space. find some. no one wants a dance party that is all elbows and eyes, it doesn't end well for anyone, and usually won't last all that long.
4) try not to have any of your scrapper friends show up. fist fights are not conducive to the sort of dance party we're talking about here. although the argument can be made for the inclusion of these friends for other types of dance parties.
5) try to have at least one girl who will at some point, raise her beer over her head and yell "WOOOOOO". a note of caution however, too many of these girls, and the party will go downhill fast, and likely end as a cross between a strip tease and body shots competition.
6) try these songs on for size:

bloc party - helicopter (breakneck mix)
justin timberlake (feat clipse) - sexyback
the sounds - painted by numbers
scissor sisters - paul mccartney
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Friday, September 15, 2006

whiter shade of pale

ever since i heard his work in the dj kicks series, i've always had a soft spot for erlend oye. yeah, i can totally understand some of the critics (his voice is too breathy, he's too one dimmensional, why does he have to sing), but for all of their critcisms, i find myself seeing the flip side of the coin, and actually enjoying those aspects of the music. awhile back, i heard that he was involved in another project, and promptly forgot about it. and then today, lo and behold, pitchfork has a half decent review of said project, and off i go in search of it. having now listened to the album in it's entirety (which was half the reason that today's post is coming so late), here were my impressions:
1) i kind of feel a little like sonic youth took some ludes and travelled back in time with a laptop to visit themselves, and maybe they took sianspheric and hum with them...
2) this feels like watching a college jam band who are really into their own riffs and shoes
3) shoegaze!
4) shoegaze pop!
5) i wonder how long until this is used on a montage on the o.c.
so to summarise, it's good. it's really good. although it took a few listens to really get into it. so here, for you, the whitest boy alive, from the album dreams

fireworks
don't give up

their myspace
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Thursday, September 14, 2006

yarrrrrrr

so i don't know about you, but for me, it's not every day that i get email from someone purporting to be a pirate. so you can understand why, although i got an email about david & the citizens, from someone called pirate! brooke black i waited awhile before opening it (the subject line of, Swedish Meatballs Delivered Fresh From David & the Citizens, seemed a little spammy to me as well. but eventually i did get around to opening it, and here is what i found:
The Making of "Until the Sadness Is Gone":

David & the Citizens recorded this album in Malmö (a small city in Southernmost Sweden, home to bands like the Cardigans and the Ark) with producer Jens Lindgård (Franz Ferdinand, the Cardigans, April March, St. Etienne). During the recording, and in between bouts of Playstation and Jim Beam bourbon, the band hung different metallic and glass objects on a string from the ceiling and hit them softly and randomly, "to produce the sound of a drunken boat in a storm." They turned a bicycle upside down and ran a drumstick across the spinning wheels for the song "As You Fall (I Watch With Love)". They ended up with an album that has already earned them tremendous acclaim in Sweden: they received a nomination for a Swedish Grammy (Best Pop Group) in 2004; they've performed at numerous major European indie rock festivals; and P3, one of Sweden's largest television stations, produced a documentary on the band that has been aired repeatedly throughout Sweden and Denmark.

The US release features original artwork by Brendan Monroe and two bonus tracks, "Betina" and "Glued to the Light," that a re not available on the Swedish version.


so i listened. and i liked. and now i'm passing it onto you with my stamp of approval. although i've heard them compared to neutral milk hotel, i would say a more accurate description would be: the lovechild result of an orgy between nmh and every band i listened to in highschool. vague enough for you?

from until the sadness is gone:

let's not fall apart
new direction
the end
1 comments

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

i'll give you a hump day...

wink wink, nudge nudge. actually, the title has nothing to do with any of today's post, it's more an issue of a) it's wednesday b) i'm still not used to getting up "early" and c) i just don't have the creativity going right now. so what am i posting today? well, one band with subject matter i can relate to (and i can see this week, and so can you if you're in hamilton), one band who is currently getting a lot of internet buzz, and one band who seems to always (at least lately) have some sort of devoted army of follwerers online, but i've not yet posted about them. now, i could tell you which song is which, but i am little distracted right now by the news and it's a little hard to concentrate. but also because i like playing games with you all. so good luck. a shiny canadian nickel to the first person who can match the description with the band. (and here's a clue)

shout out out out out - forever indebted myspace
birdmonster - cause you can myspace
the bishops - the only way that i can look is down myspace
1 comments

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

woo hoo emily haines!

(see, i promised that exact title). so there's a veritable pantload of albums coming out today. but if you, like myself, are finding some newfound budgetary restraints, today's the sort of day that makes you want to curl up into a little ball in the corner, because there are so many options, and not enough money to buy them all. now i realize that for some ydb readers, this whole dilemma isn't the same as those of us here in the great white north. you have to wait until the 26th to get this album. sucks to be you, but it's still my pick. first of all, i have to admit that the partial reason for my pick today is my own strange brand of patriotism. you get points just for being canadian. sadly, those are the only points some bands get (not any of the ones we feature here, but you get the gist of it). if you've been a fan of metric for any length of time, chances are, at some point you've found yourself
standing slack jawed in an audience, having lost control of your limbs some time ago, watching emily haines do what she does best. (that being, being emily haines). yeah, some people might try to convince you that they know the recipe for an emily haines (1 cup blondie, 3/4 of karen o, a sprinkling to taste of bss) but they're lying. and for anyone who that they had her all figured out, today's solo release knives don't have your back should send them back to their test kitchen. here's the evidence:

our hell
the lottery

buy the album

myspace
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technical difficulties

hey folks, ezarchive doesn't seem to be working too hot right now, so you're going to have to wait a little while for my "woo hoo for emily haines!" post. sit tight.
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Monday, September 11, 2006

band geeks unite!

well, to be more correct, choir geeks unite. today's post is for cait, danielle, sarah, casey, and anyone else who ever spent any time in a choir. let me tell a little story to illustrate why today's post is so awesome. once, in highschool, we were handed out the music to a song from les mis. if memory serves me correct, we were all sort of excited about this. partly because of the inherent geek factor involved in choir (so naturally, we had a weird affinity for showtunes) and partly because this was something in english, that had nothing to do with god, and was written when we were still alive. also, it wasn't the sort of thing that you got roped into singing for some festival or competition...it was fun.
thing is, we never ended up singing it. i'm pretty sure mrs. quinn just threw it out there at the beginning of the year just to keep us coming back. which we did. so i guess, 1 point, mrs. quinn. but still, if we had ever done anything remotely like what the scala choir is doing, we would have had a way better time. i know that it's hard to ignore my obsession with covers, but if you can listen to their version of heartbeats and not have goosebumps, then you might not have a soul. (i will fully admit, however, that the first time i heard this choir, i totally just treated them as a joke...so that you understand, i've included the first track i heard, teenage dirtbag)


teenage dirtbag
she hates me
with or without you
heartbeats

scala choir myspace
5 comments

Friday, September 08, 2006

because the original can always be better


it's yet another remix day. yeah, you could call it laziness. or you'd be perfectly within your rights to say that i am just excited that i sorted out the wireless situation and feel the need to post right! now! or we could all just agree that i like remixes, and so do you. google tells me so, and the internet never lies, right? also, if anyone reading this goes to mohawk, let me know...maybe you can hook me up with how your first week went. maybe you want to tell me face to face ENOUGH WITH THE REMIX POSTS!...but somehow i doubt that. ok, i have a half hour, and so i figure you can get maybe...four songs out of me? (uploading takes time, people...plus i need to find an amusing picture, for no good reason), so here's your take for the day:

beck - girl (octet remix)
lady sovereign - hoodie (basement jaxx remix)
basement jaxx - hush boy (les visiteurs remix)
spank rock - far left (u-tern electro-boogie remix)
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Thursday, September 07, 2006

Where’s alice cooper when you really need him?

Today’s entry comes to you fresh from a break at my first day back at school in a bazillion years. Luckily, not too much has changed in the way of breaks, and I now find myself with more than an hour to kill, with nothing more than a cheese sandwich and a can of diet coke (yes, bring on the brain cancer) to fill up my time. Sadly, while this is also the first laptop entry, I can’t actually sort out the wireless network here yet (and don’t even get me started on the headaches I had last night with sympatico…that is unless you want to hear me being really really pissed off). But enough about me (and trust me, I am well aware that you probably aren’t reading this, and merely clicked on a link from elbo.ws, google analytics doesn’t lie, folks), onto the music. Maybe you noticed that while everyone else in the free world is all excited about the upcoming tv on the radio release, you haven’t heard a peep from me. There’s a good reason for that—four letters: RIAA. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to post the mr. Grieves cover, and they asked me to take it down. Therefore, I am not going to incur their wrath anymore, and will not post any of the upcoming tracks (although from what I have heard so far—awesome). If you get a chance to hear any of it, do, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Instead, today I bring you something different, based on what you all have been searching for. So, top three searches lately were for jean grae, beck remixes, and everyone’s favourite highschool band, the kashmere stage band. so I hope you’ve kept up your searches and found your way bacm here, because today’s your day:

the herbaliser, feat. jean grae - nah'mean nah'm'sayin
beck - fax machine anthem (dizzee rascal remix)
the kashmere stage band - all praises
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Wednesday, September 06, 2006

all you sinners get ready to win big!

because apparently, if kirk cameron is right, then when all the good folks get raptured, the rest of us get to fight over their jewelry and fillings. so there's that to look forward to. i thought that the weather today would be perfect for a rapture. a huge clap of thunder out of nowhere, brief torrential rain, and now it's sunny. apparently no one around here was raptured, but i can't really say that it's much of a surprise. and in case you didn't get the joke yet, let me spell it out for you. today is all about the rapture. as michelle pointed out a few days ago, it is all about the cowbell. and no matter how shit they be live at times, they always manage to get your ass shaking on their albums. and also, since we all know i have an extreme soft spot for remixes, they are the perfect band for me. ripe for the remix, and rarely disappointing. (i actually think i heard a remix of house of jealous lovers before i heard the actual song. i don't know what that means, exactly, but i think it means something). anyway, the new album is almost in our hot little hands, so to celebrate, here's some of the tracks, just to tide you over until next tuesday. also, of course, one remix.

from pieces of the people we love:

pieces of the people we love
the sound
get myself into it (prince language disco edit)
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Tuesday, September 05, 2006

waiting waiting waiting

today i am waiting to be able to go to work so i can be ready to start work for real in a few weeks. problem is, i have to sit here at my house and wait for the lovely folks from purolator to deliver my laptop from dell, and they really don't say when they might be here. (to be honest, the website kept telling me it was supposed to be here yesterday, but we all know that the internet doesn't think labour day should be a holiday). thankfully, the finance dept at dell is all good, seeing as i received my invoice BEFORE i got the computer. which is awesome. so i'm trying to make this short and sweet, so that i don't miss them knocking on the door (because god forbid they actually ring my doorbell). so here's 3 songs. maybe they will get you through whatever it is that you're waiting for today.

the blow - pile of gold myspace
the album leaf - always for you myspace
stars of track and field - movies of antarctica myspace
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Friday, September 01, 2006

no thanks, we're chock full!

holy crap it's september. how exactly did that happen? i mean, i know there was a summer somewhere in there, but it seems like it flew by. i'm not sure, but i think this means that i'm getting old. this music however, is not old. it is young like a baby. maybe younger. and less full of shit. and it doesn't cry. work with me here. it's good stuff. and yes, it's another teddybears song, but it's a remix, and judging from the absurdly large amount of you that seem to flock here whenever i post a remix, i assume that you're with me on the "remix, good!" train. as for the other two tracks featured today, they both remind me of how awesome some music was that i listened to in highschool. both the hold steady and the thermals have a sort of energy that just says sweaty all ages (with some grumbling of-age folks sitting at the bar).

teddybears - cobrastyle (diplo remix) myspace
the thermals - a pillar of salt myspace
the hold steady - chips ahoy! myspace
1 comments