(no subject)
Time to make the exact same post Andy just made (I'm bored and sick and it seems like a cool idea okay?)...
A MUSICAL GUIDE TO HAPPINESS IN LONDON
by, Donald Stewart
1. The Shins- Caring Is Creepy
Garden State was a shitty shitty film, but it did remind me that the first thirty seconds to Caring Is Creepy are perhaps the most joyous and fulfilling thirty seconds ever put on disc. I often put this on when I'm on the tube and headed somewhere alone and it makes me feel like I could do just about anything. Which I can.
2. Moving Units- Between Us And Them
This bass line is the most fucking sweet thing you've probably ever heard. It will be the anthem of the indie dance party for months to come. In fact I imagine it won't come into it's own as the dance floor monster that it is until I, or Andy, return to Dartmouth, and force the FNR kids to get moving.
3. NoTwist- Pilot
Well what can you say about this song. It has consistently been on my playlist since the end of the spring. It is an amazing mix tape song. In fact what I have unknowingly done is just put tracks 2-5 of my latest mix disc here at the start of my London listener's guide. Hah. So, yes, kids, let it be known that shins > moving units > notwist > the wrens might be the hottest transitioning I've ever done.
4. The Wrens- Thirteen Grand
Andy and I play this song a lot at Lone Pine. We play it pretty good. It is one of the few we don't embarass ourselves on. I never got around to listening to the actual version until I got here to London... I was falling asleep with my shitty laptop speakers rasping out The Meadowlands when this song knocked me out of semi-consciouness. In that moment I realized what a fantastic fantastic song it is. Then I fell contentedly asleep. I woke up and listened to it again. In talking with Andy we pinpointed the string synth as being the key to this original recording- it brings a thickness and mood to the song that we could never quite corner at Lone Pine. Fantastic.
5. The Dismemberment Plan- Timebomb
I remember way back during my Freshmen Fall Andy, Calvin, Anni, some kid that I never saw again, and I, went and saw The Dismemberment Plan at Higher Ground VT. They sort of sucked, unfortunately. Everyone was a little disappointed. What did not suck, however, was this song. I don't think I'd ever even heard it before that point- but it instantly struck me as slightly different in flavor from other Plan shit. It is dark, melodic, and grandiose. In fact it sounds, as I postulated on the FNR group list, a lot like Interpol. But tighter, more dangerous, more dismembering (ah hah.) The only reason this isn't on that mix CD I'm making is because The City is a better song- but of course I've known The City since Katie threw it on a mix tape for me way back when... so its not really new enough to my ear to qualify as London Certified Listening.
6. The Magnetic Fields- Take Ecstasy With Me
This was another falling asleep listening to my shitty laptop speakers experience. What a beautiful, beautiful, concept. A lot of Merrit's stuff is goofy, sappy, written with tongue firmly in cheek... but it captures something that, despite all the jocularity, we all feel. Sure, lets be like bunny rabbits. Lets take ecstasy. It is almost the refreshing nature of the fact that someone is writing love songs about alternate forms of love... Here's lookin' at you Syd ; )
7. Broken Social Scene- Lover's Spit
"All these people drinking lover's spit
They sit around and clean their face with it
And they listen to teeth to learn how to quit
tied to a night they never met
You know it's time
that we grow old and do some shit
I like it all that way
All these people drinking lover's spit
Swallowing words while giving head
They listen to teeth to learn how to quit
tied to a night they never met
You know it's time
that we grow old and do some shit
I like it all that way"
You know it's time I grew old and did some shit.
8. Fear Before The March of Flames- On The Bright Side She Could Choke
On The Bright Side, She Could Choke. The first thirty seconds of this song, again, make it one of the best things I've heard all year. The singer does this thing with his voice in the first four lines that makes it sound like he is choking on his own words as he screams them out. It is pretty awesome. Yes. Vicious yet beautiful- something you don't get much in hardcore.
9. New Order- Blue Monday
At FROG last saturday the DJ spun this song right as I cruised through my third redstripe. It went on at least twenty minutes. Fucking amazing. By the end of it I was fucking going crazy on the dance floor, my fourth redstripe somewhere on the ground, crushed under the feet of the masses after Christina knocked it flying out of my hand. New Order has my heart. <3
10. The First Thirty Seconds of The Arcade Fire- Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
I downloaded the first three tracks of the new Arcade Fire but got cut off thirty seconds into the fourth. I am so bummed and yet I can't stop listening to the first thirty seconds of this song. It just sounds fucking KILLER.
11. Beulah- Emma Blowgun's Last Stand
The "Epic" song on the best Beulah record, When Your Heartstrings Break. More movement in this one song than on the rest of the record combined. It wanders around, snaking and building, until those horns come in at 2:26 and the whole thing just relaxes out into this amazing drive through Picadilly Circus, looking out the window on the second floor of the London Double Decker, the lights of the billboards reflected off the glass, everyone moving around looking slightly foolish and drunk, but absolutely at peace.
12. Daughters- I Slept With Daughters and All I Got Was This Lousy Song Written About Me
This one goes out to Erica and Jade, who made out with daughters but probably didn't get a song written about them. Best show so far in England, and its a bunch of dudes from Providence Rhode Island. Is anyone suprised?
13. Ennio Morricone
Nothing defines my life better than the soundtracks to Spaghetti-Westerns. Have I mentioned how sick my boots are?
14. Otis Redding- Respect
What can I say? The guy wrote it, arranged it, and then performed it. Flawlessly. Best of all it doesn't have that annoying "R E S P E C T" thing that fucking Aretha Franklin stuck in later. As Otis says on The Monterrey Pop Festival recordings: "This girl stole it from me, but I'm going to play it anyway." She didn't steal it from you Otis. She stuck a piece of paper over it and tried to trace out the same soul with a shitty yellow crayon.
15. Death From Above- Do It! (live)
16. Denver In Dallas- Arizona
This is here as a show of solidarity with the FNR kids back home. Ya'll are going to see a kick ass show tonight, then go on to party with some amazing dudes.
17. Yaphet Kotto- Torn Pictures
The guitars in this song for some reason always remind me of bodies careening around a fucking box car on the way to Auschwitz. A horrible mental image but a fucking mental IMAGE that is born entirely of the music. You can't even hear the lyrics and yet you feel just total desperation. Amazing.
18. The Libertines- Can't Stand Me Now
There is a reason why their posters are all over this fucking country.
19. Isis- The Beginning and The End
One night I was on the tube, returning from a bad theater experience with my sometimes suffocating theater mates, who were definitely suffocating at this particular moment. So I found the furthest seat from them and threw Isis on my iPod and watched that train fucking disintegrate piece by piece, starting at the far end and creeping towards my theater mates in the middle. I don't think they even realized they were scattered all over the tracks by the time we got home.
20. Freda Payne- Band of Gold
I kind of want to cover this song and make it fucking kick ass. Because right now the instrumentation is weak as shit. But her voice, and the melody, is fucking golden. Thanks Anna.
Aight thats all I got for now. Now to make shitty ramen and watch shitty british TV in the hopes that I'll be recovered enough to go out with Christina tomorrow night...
A MUSICAL GUIDE TO HAPPINESS IN LONDON
by, Donald Stewart
1. The Shins- Caring Is Creepy
Garden State was a shitty shitty film, but it did remind me that the first thirty seconds to Caring Is Creepy are perhaps the most joyous and fulfilling thirty seconds ever put on disc. I often put this on when I'm on the tube and headed somewhere alone and it makes me feel like I could do just about anything. Which I can.
2. Moving Units- Between Us And Them
This bass line is the most fucking sweet thing you've probably ever heard. It will be the anthem of the indie dance party for months to come. In fact I imagine it won't come into it's own as the dance floor monster that it is until I, or Andy, return to Dartmouth, and force the FNR kids to get moving.
3. NoTwist- Pilot
Well what can you say about this song. It has consistently been on my playlist since the end of the spring. It is an amazing mix tape song. In fact what I have unknowingly done is just put tracks 2-5 of my latest mix disc here at the start of my London listener's guide. Hah. So, yes, kids, let it be known that shins > moving units > notwist > the wrens might be the hottest transitioning I've ever done.
4. The Wrens- Thirteen Grand
Andy and I play this song a lot at Lone Pine. We play it pretty good. It is one of the few we don't embarass ourselves on. I never got around to listening to the actual version until I got here to London... I was falling asleep with my shitty laptop speakers rasping out The Meadowlands when this song knocked me out of semi-consciouness. In that moment I realized what a fantastic fantastic song it is. Then I fell contentedly asleep. I woke up and listened to it again. In talking with Andy we pinpointed the string synth as being the key to this original recording- it brings a thickness and mood to the song that we could never quite corner at Lone Pine. Fantastic.
5. The Dismemberment Plan- Timebomb
I remember way back during my Freshmen Fall Andy, Calvin, Anni, some kid that I never saw again, and I, went and saw The Dismemberment Plan at Higher Ground VT. They sort of sucked, unfortunately. Everyone was a little disappointed. What did not suck, however, was this song. I don't think I'd ever even heard it before that point- but it instantly struck me as slightly different in flavor from other Plan shit. It is dark, melodic, and grandiose. In fact it sounds, as I postulated on the FNR group list, a lot like Interpol. But tighter, more dangerous, more dismembering (ah hah.) The only reason this isn't on that mix CD I'm making is because The City is a better song- but of course I've known The City since Katie threw it on a mix tape for me way back when... so its not really new enough to my ear to qualify as London Certified Listening.
6. The Magnetic Fields- Take Ecstasy With Me
This was another falling asleep listening to my shitty laptop speakers experience. What a beautiful, beautiful, concept. A lot of Merrit's stuff is goofy, sappy, written with tongue firmly in cheek... but it captures something that, despite all the jocularity, we all feel. Sure, lets be like bunny rabbits. Lets take ecstasy. It is almost the refreshing nature of the fact that someone is writing love songs about alternate forms of love... Here's lookin' at you Syd ; )
7. Broken Social Scene- Lover's Spit
"All these people drinking lover's spit
They sit around and clean their face with it
And they listen to teeth to learn how to quit
tied to a night they never met
You know it's time
that we grow old and do some shit
I like it all that way
All these people drinking lover's spit
Swallowing words while giving head
They listen to teeth to learn how to quit
tied to a night they never met
You know it's time
that we grow old and do some shit
I like it all that way"
You know it's time I grew old and did some shit.
8. Fear Before The March of Flames- On The Bright Side She Could Choke
On The Bright Side, She Could Choke. The first thirty seconds of this song, again, make it one of the best things I've heard all year. The singer does this thing with his voice in the first four lines that makes it sound like he is choking on his own words as he screams them out. It is pretty awesome. Yes. Vicious yet beautiful- something you don't get much in hardcore.
9. New Order- Blue Monday
At FROG last saturday the DJ spun this song right as I cruised through my third redstripe. It went on at least twenty minutes. Fucking amazing. By the end of it I was fucking going crazy on the dance floor, my fourth redstripe somewhere on the ground, crushed under the feet of the masses after Christina knocked it flying out of my hand. New Order has my heart. <3
10. The First Thirty Seconds of The Arcade Fire- Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
I downloaded the first three tracks of the new Arcade Fire but got cut off thirty seconds into the fourth. I am so bummed and yet I can't stop listening to the first thirty seconds of this song. It just sounds fucking KILLER.
11. Beulah- Emma Blowgun's Last Stand
The "Epic" song on the best Beulah record, When Your Heartstrings Break. More movement in this one song than on the rest of the record combined. It wanders around, snaking and building, until those horns come in at 2:26 and the whole thing just relaxes out into this amazing drive through Picadilly Circus, looking out the window on the second floor of the London Double Decker, the lights of the billboards reflected off the glass, everyone moving around looking slightly foolish and drunk, but absolutely at peace.
12. Daughters- I Slept With Daughters and All I Got Was This Lousy Song Written About Me
This one goes out to Erica and Jade, who made out with daughters but probably didn't get a song written about them. Best show so far in England, and its a bunch of dudes from Providence Rhode Island. Is anyone suprised?
13. Ennio Morricone
Nothing defines my life better than the soundtracks to Spaghetti-Westerns. Have I mentioned how sick my boots are?
14. Otis Redding- Respect
What can I say? The guy wrote it, arranged it, and then performed it. Flawlessly. Best of all it doesn't have that annoying "R E S P E C T" thing that fucking Aretha Franklin stuck in later. As Otis says on The Monterrey Pop Festival recordings: "This girl stole it from me, but I'm going to play it anyway." She didn't steal it from you Otis. She stuck a piece of paper over it and tried to trace out the same soul with a shitty yellow crayon.
15. Death From Above- Do It! (live)
16. Denver In Dallas- Arizona
This is here as a show of solidarity with the FNR kids back home. Ya'll are going to see a kick ass show tonight, then go on to party with some amazing dudes.
17. Yaphet Kotto- Torn Pictures
The guitars in this song for some reason always remind me of bodies careening around a fucking box car on the way to Auschwitz. A horrible mental image but a fucking mental IMAGE that is born entirely of the music. You can't even hear the lyrics and yet you feel just total desperation. Amazing.
18. The Libertines- Can't Stand Me Now
There is a reason why their posters are all over this fucking country.
19. Isis- The Beginning and The End
One night I was on the tube, returning from a bad theater experience with my sometimes suffocating theater mates, who were definitely suffocating at this particular moment. So I found the furthest seat from them and threw Isis on my iPod and watched that train fucking disintegrate piece by piece, starting at the far end and creeping towards my theater mates in the middle. I don't think they even realized they were scattered all over the tracks by the time we got home.
20. Freda Payne- Band of Gold
I kind of want to cover this song and make it fucking kick ass. Because right now the instrumentation is weak as shit. But her voice, and the melody, is fucking golden. Thanks Anna.
Aight thats all I got for now. Now to make shitty ramen and watch shitty british TV in the hopes that I'll be recovered enough to go out with Christina tomorrow night...