Heartache With Hard Work

For those who don’t know, my job is to coach debate at Dartmouth. It’s not worth getting into all of that right now, but it does have some significance for the blog, since tomorrow we leave for the first tournament of the year. It’s at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

Why does this matter? Well, one of the big reasons I started to get obsessive about finding new music is because about five years ago I was trying to make mix-CDs for every tournament, and quickly discovered I was running out of interesting stuff to put on them. I’ve slowed down a little bit on making a mix for every tournament (12-15 a year runs into some quality control problems), but I still do a few every year. And I figured I might as well post it here. I’ve talked about most of these songs already over the past few months, and will almost certainly cover the rest soon, so I’ll leave comments on the minimal side.

1. Are You There Margaret? It’s Me God – Lawrence Arms
2. I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor – Arctic Monkeys
3. TV – Headlights
4. This Boy – I’m From Barcelona
5. Fraud In The ’80s – Mates of State
6. O Valencia – Decemberists (no link – still under wraps)
7. Peace and Hate – Submarines
8. Born On A Train (live on KCRW) – Arcade Fire
9. Living Room – Tegan and Sara
10. The Freest Man – Tilly and the Wall
11. Antarctica – Antarctica Takes It!
12. Kate – Sambassadeur
13. Mothers, Sisters, Daughters and Wives – Voxtrot
14. Stevie Nix – The Hold Steady
15. Still A Long Way To Go – James Dean Bradfield
16. Six Feet Under – Jon Auer
17. What Can I Say – Brandi Carlile
18. If Looks Could Kill – Camera Obscura
19. Old Dan Tucker – Bruce Springsteen
20. It’s My Way of Staying Connected – She, Sir
21. Been Here Before – Jeremy Enigk
22. The Mistress Witch From McClure (or, The Mind That Knows Itself) – Sufjan Stevens

A few great moments:
-The 2:57 mark in “Are You There Margaret? It’s Me God” when you think that the song is starting to fade out but they come back one last time to punch you in the gut.
-The piano interlude in the middle of “Stevie Nix.” I’ve really fallen in love with this song all over again in the the last month or two.
-Jeremy Enigk’s voice the whole way through the song, but especially when he explodes on “I empathize”
-The vocal interplay on “Living Room.” I can’t remember ever reading any blogs talking about Tegan and Sara, which is a shame, because they’re pretty fantastic.
-Kori Gardner’s voice about 45 seconds into “Fraud of the ’80s” when she sings “I spent a long time trying to see through” – it just makes me melt.

I probably won’t post again until we return early next week. Until then, enjoy the songs and the weekend of the equinox.

I’ve been meaning to post about Graham Lindsey for a couple months now, and today is finally the day. He resides in that pleasant intersection where folk, country, and twang meet. But with an edge. To be honest, more than anything else, he makes me think of the Kingston Trio, though that’s more of a subjective feeling than because they’re that similar. A more reasonable comparison might be Hank Williams if he grew up listening to punk music.

His new album is Hell Under the Skullbones, and it’s quite good. It’s a record that makes you think of dusty Midwestern evenings and broken hearts. As has been the case for the last couple weeks, I’d like to write something a bit more expansive, but time-pressure is severely limiting my ability to spend more than 15 minutes a day on blogging. So give these songs a listen and hear for yourself:

Matchbook Song
Winterim

And in the unlikely event that you live in the Netherlands, go out and see him on tour in November and December.

I know very little about The Ballet. I picked up their song “I Hate the War” a month or two ago but didn’t listen to it for such a long time that now I have no idea where I actually found it. However, some google searches suggest it may have been either Brooklyn Vegan or Yeti Don’t Dance.

Their website has the following description of the band: “4 queers, 3 chords, 100 melodies. Marina plays bass, Ginger plays violin, Craig plays synth, and Greg plays guitar and sings.” If I had more time, I would eschew the easy categorization, but it’s busy times around these parts so I’m just going to cut some corners and call ’em twee. Belle and Sebastian, Magnetic Fields, many other 80s-type pop bands. You get the picture.

I Hate the War
In My Head

As I mentioned, it took me awhile to listen to “I Hate the War” but I’m hooked now. It’s about as happy and bouncy an anti-war song as you can get, but somehow it just serves to drive home the absurdity of it all. I mean, really, what else is there to say beyond “It’s crazy that this thing is still going on”? Nothing except a few more “na na na na na’s.”

For a little more info, there’s a nice interview with them at L Magazine.

If you want a copy of their record…well, you can’t have one. It’s sold out right now, but they’re getting ready to issue a second edition. Check their website for updates or send ’em an e-mail.

One band that I haven’t seen almost anyone talking about is Bombadil. I “discovered” them a few months ago via I Guess I’m Floating, but they’ve been pretty far off the blogger-radar other than that. Which is a shame because they’re great.

Let’s begin with the fact that I would pretty much love them even if their music sounded like Laibach, simply because of the name. I mean, seriously. But on top of that, they also have some great songs. They sound pretty much like you’d expect, given the name. It’s the type of playful, jaunty, chorus-oriented sing-alongs that would fit in perfectly at the Green Dragon.

Here are two tracks from their website:

Jellybean Wine
Johnny

“Johnny” is definitely my favorite, and has been a constant song for the last few months for me, but “Jellybean Wine” is no slouch, either. Lots of instruments, harmonies, and a rousing good time will be had by all.

If you live in the North Carolina area, they’re probably playing somewhere very close, with shows all around the state for the next couple months. And they’ve got an EP (and shirt) available at their website.

That Aberdeen album I mentioned a week ago showed up in the mail and it’s everything I was hoping for. More dreamy tunes, more wispy vocals, and more jangly guitars.

I’ve talked about them quite a lot in the last couple months, so I won’t go into much detail, but here are a couple songs that exemplify what made this band great.

Sink or Float
When It Doesn’t Matter Anymore

The album is What Do I Wish For Now?: Singles + Extras, and is available at Darla.com.

In other news, Apple unveiled a bunch of new stuff. New iPods and such are interesting, but what really affects me is the new iTunes which I foolishly downloaded. And it’s blue and grey! I mean, those are nice enough colors, but why would you ever abandon the green? Anyways, I don’t react well to change.

I made the drive down to Boston yesterday to see Mates of State, who put on the best show I’ve seen in quite a while. They’ve got one of my favorite albums of the year (Bring It Back), a super-cute backstory, and enough excitement to power a small city for several months.

In an hour and a half they managed to play basically every song of theirs that I love, and did a mighty fine job of it. Highlights included rousing rendition of “Fraud in the 80s” and “For the Actor,” an extended “Like U Crazy” with an interlude for the chorus of “Crazy,” and harmonies galore.

Probably my favorite thing about Mates of State is the codas to their songs, extended outros on the same theme with vocal and instrumental variations, especially when they’re singing two different refrains from the song simultaneously. It’s the kind of thing you can’t be sure will translate well to a live show, but they did a fantastic job with it on songs like “Think Long,” “Punchlines,” and “Running Out.”

Really the only negative I can give is that their rendition of “Beautiful Dreamer” (my favorite song from the new record) felt a little flat. Not bad, but it certainly didn’t live up to the album-version like the rest of the show.

The biggest highlight was “Goods” which is my favorite song by them and which they did a great job with. I managed to get a video of it, though since my camera isn’t the best it’s pretty blurry and the sound isn’t great. But if you’re interested…

They’ve got a bunch more shows coming up, and I highly recommend seeing them if you get the chance.

MP3s:
Goods
Beautiful Dreamer
For the Actor

Real short one today. This song, by The Cloud Room, has been around for a long time and was a blog-favorite last winter, but I’m just in the mood today.

Hey Now Now

It’s super-catchy, upbeat and was written while the singer was waiting for a confirmation of a positive AIDS test. Which explains why, for all its energy, it feels a little frentic. And then there’s that circular chorus that runs rings around you…

Short lesson: there are crappy moments in your life but you just move past it, “breathe it in and try to dream again.”

The album is The Cloud Room. And there’s also an interesting discussion of the song at Pitchfork: The Smash That Wasn’t.

I wasn’t going to write anything about 9/11 since I wasn’t sure what to say, and the concept of an anniversary just doesn’t quite feel right. But then I stopped by I Am Fuel, You Are Friends where Heather discussed some songs from the America: A Tribute To Heroes telethon that was broadcast 10 days after the event. The whole post is worth reading and has some great songs. But this one, Bruce Springsteen playing “My City of Ruins,” is one of the most haunting, emotional, and completely devastating performances I have ever seen.

“My City of Ruins” was already one of my favorite Springsteen songs, but it is even moreso now. Just watching the pain, the sense of loss, the determination all mixed together on his face…

The Rising is, without a doubt in my mind, the best response (musical or otherwise) anyone has come up with to the events five years ago. This song is a big part of the reason why. Perhaps even more because it was written a year before 9/11 and is more mundanely about the disrepair of Asbury Park. To me, that only adds to the gravity since the tragedy of 9/11 has always been the way it inflicted itself on us in the places that felt the most safe, the most personal.

That this song, about the loss of our homes, can translate so perfectly into a song about the loss suffered by a whole nation, demonstrates once again that Springsteen is a poet of amazing talent and empathy. As if we needed any more proof…

Got the Stars of Track and Field album in the mail the other day, and I’ll talk about them soon, but included in the package was Into the West, the American debut by Pilot Speed. I had never heard of them, but have been seriously enjoying the record. It inhabits that same genre of 90s alt-rock throwbacks that have been making some waves this year, but quite possibly are my favorite of the group.

The album is full of great songs, from “Into Your Hideout” which manages to sound both glittery and rugged at the same time to “Alright” which builds and builds toward a glorious climax like Snow Patrol wishes every song on Eyes Open did. But two songs stick out for me as the best:

Turn the Lights On

A great chiming rhythm guides this song, holding the center while occasional bursts of energy leap from the surface like solar flares. In that respect it reminds me of some of the best songs from The National. But this is more pop than those guys.

Knife-Grey Sea

I’m still not completely convinced this isn’t a long-lost U2 track. Many songs on the album bear a strong resemblance to the early 90s incarnation of that band, but none more than the second half of this one (starting at about 2:10). I know it’s a cliche and doesn’t really mean anything, but I’ll still call on the word “incandescent” to describe it.

The album comes out October 3rd. Until then, listen to a couple more tracks at their myspace page, pick up their lead single “Barely Listening” on iTunes, and get any of their old (Canadian-released) albums at Maple Music.

The Aberdeen compilation I promised back in July is now available. Go to Darla.com to buy What Do I Wish For Now?: Singles + Extras. I ordered my copy and will most likely post again once I get a chance to listen to it. And, there’s a great history of the band at Under the Radar Mag.

In the meantime, the two songs I posted:

Homesick
Kyoto Death Song

And, while I’m on the subject, how about a little love for Beth Arzy’s other work with Trembling Blue Stars. Their most recent album (2005’s The Seven Autumn Flowers) didn’t seem to show up on the radar of most indie geeks (I missed it myself until a few months ago), but was a great piece of melancholy twee-pop.

Helen Reddy

Ms. Arzy’s voice is once again a focal point, floating lightly above the milieu of the shoegazy guitar and light string touches.

The Sea is So Quiet

This song is a slightly different version than the one on the album, but I think I might like it more. The lo-fi tone gives it a breathy, atmospheric feel that really works well.