Dance Around The Room To Accordion Keys

Sufjan at the Allen Room

2006-01-17T16:06:00.000-05:00

I saw Sufjan Stevens' late show at the new Allen Room at Lincoln Center on Saturday night. The room itself and the sound were incredible. Sufjan had a band of 16, dressed all in black, and everything they played was from Illinois or Seven Swans. It was pretty unforgetable.

Here's the new Built To Spill track - Goin' Against Your Mind. I find it to be awesome.

Some stuff I've been listening to a lot lately

2006-01-12T18:01:00.000-05:00

Tapes 'n Tapes - Omaha
Tapes 'n Tapes - Insistor
Final Fantasy - This Modern Love (Bloc Party cover): go here, click to listen.
Final Fantasy - Peach, Plum, Pear (Joanna Newsom cover): go here, same deal.
Final Fantasy - Please Please Please (Fiona Apple cover): on his myspace.
Death From Above 1979 - Black History Month (Girl On Girl Featuring Final Fantasy Revision): here.
Belle & Sebatian - Gigantic (Pixies cover): go to Jake's blog to hear it.
Xiu Xiu - Gigantic (Pixies cover): here.
Page France - Orange
Explosions in the Sky - Once More to the Afterlife: here.
Wolf Parade - You Are A Runner And I Am My Father's Son.

The site that a lot of those songs are on, http://hype.non-standard.net, is surprisingly good. They refer to it as an "audio blog aggregator. "

2005-12-20T20:27:00.000-05:00

Some hip holiday songs for Jen and the rest of you.

Sufjan Stevens - Come On Let's Boogey To The Elf Dance!

Bright Eyes - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

The Boy Least Likely To - Little Donkey

Arcade Fire - Jinglebell Rock

The Walkmen - Christmas Party

Flaming Lips - A Change At Christmas (Say It Isn't So)

Math and Physics Club - A Marshmellow World

Decembs jump to the majors, leaked Mogwai

2005-12-12T16:14:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the non-integrated links, my computer's being difficult. But betterjanky post than no post, amirite? So first off, The Decemberists have just announced to Pitchfork that they've switched from Kill Rock Stars (Xiu Xiu, Deerhoof) to Capitol Records (Radiohead, REM). Neither The Decemberists' site nor the Capitol site says anything about the switch yet. I'm cool with it, as long as they don't do a Death Cab and produce a fairly crappy album as their first try on a major. But I think that Plans' lameness was sort of inevitable at that point, anyway. (The Pitchfork article:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/news/05-12/12.shtml)
Also notice that he's gotten Carson Ellis knocked up(!).

http://www.stereogum.com/Mogwai%20-%20Glasgow%20Mega-Snake.mp3
Mogwai - Glasgow Media Snake
Stereogum posted a leaked song from Mogwai's upcoming album. It's loud and crackly and I like it.

http://travis.ography.co.uk/other_audio/travis/beautiful_occupation_
20050611.mp3
Travis - The Beautiful Occupation
Speaking of awesome Scottish bands, I have been listening to Travis a lot lately.

http://locker.uky.edu/~mcjord2/Elliott%20Smith%20-%20Stickman.mp3
Elliott Smith - Stickman
Here's the "new"est Elliott Smith track to emerge from wherever. It's waaay good.

Music Recommending

2005-12-09T19:26:00.000-05:00

For getting into new bands, I've recently started using Indie Pop Radio and Pandora (at Casey's suggestion). Pandora is super cool - you put in a few bands, and it streams songs by similar bands.

Mates of State just signed to Barsuk! How exciting. You can watch a couple of their videos here. I especially like both "Goods (All In Your Head)" vids.

Slowdance Records (home of The Velvet Teen) is offering $3 packs of 6 posters so that they can clean out their offices. Sweet.

The Weird Sisters

2005-11-27T14:59:00.000-05:00

I just saw the new Harry Potter movie this Friday, and I'd say it was worth it. There were only a few shots of The Weird Sisters (the band playing at the prom, featuring Jarvis Cocker of Pulp and Johnny and Phil of Radiohead), but if you wanted to download the three songs, they're hosted here.

My goal for today is to get tickets to a show before the end of 2005 (everything I want to see is 16+).

Page France, NMH

2005-11-21T16:31:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Hey, Thanksgiving is this weekend, so maybe my hip second-cousins-in-law (one of them knows the chick from Math & Physics Club!)will tell me about some new band.

So apparently Jeff Mangum showed up at an Elf Power show a few days ago. Speaking of which, Pitchfork finally got around to reviewing In The Aeroplane Over The Sea this September.

I've been digging Page France. You can stream 6 songs from the new album Hello, Dear Wind at their purevolume site.

The new Belle & Sebastian is coming out on Feb. 7, and I am SO. Excited.

New Cat Power song, + a cover

2005-11-06T21:36:00.000-05:00

Matador posted the title track of the forthcoming Cat Power album on their site a couple of days ago, and it's really good.

Cat Power - The Greatest

Aaand here's her cover of Oasis' "Wonderwall."

Cat Power - Wonderwall

Elliott Smith B-Sides & Other Songs

2005-11-05T19:22:00.000-05:00

Elliott Smith B-Sides has a gazillion rare and out of print Elliott Smith tracks available for download, including the recently leaked Basement II demos. It's definitely worth checking out.

Files are mp3's in .zip format.

Do They Know It's Hallowe'en? - North American Halloween Prevention Initiative

2005-10-30T19:13:00.000-05:00

This might be old news to a few of you, but it's too good not to post. The song's called "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?" and it's by the "North American Halloween Prevention Initiative" (which happens to feature Beck, David Cross, Devendra Banhart, Smoosh, Thurston Moore, and members of Rilo Kiley, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the Arcade Fire). So you'd better go over to Vice Records and stream it right now.

The Decemberists

2005-10-23T11:59:00.000-04:00

The Decemberists had 3 new songs, recorded live, on their "secret Purevolume site." I got to listen to them before they were taken down. They're all pretty solid, and they're all just Colin with his guitar. To make up for the lack of mp3age, here they are playing my favorite song, Bridges and Balloons by Joanna Newsom.

WHOA. Whoa. Casey is responsible for the previous post. That's what I get for needing his skillz with teh hyper-text markup language. I'll leave it up, but I strongly disagree with the statement that Shaggy is a one-hit wonder. He had that other hit, uh, that other one, you know?

It wasn't me! - Shaggy

2005-10-22T20:29:00.000-04:00

All indie and no play makes Jack a dull boy, which brings us to today's post of much importance. On this day in 1968, one hit wonder, Shaggy was born. It Wasn't Me is streaming on Shaggy's MySpace right now.

Elliott Smith

2005-10-21T18:35:00.000-04:00

RIP Elliott Smith, 8/6/1969-10/21/2003
Today is the two year anniversary of his death. Elliott was an immensely talented man, and he's certainly missed.
XO, man.

http://www.elliottsmithbsides.com for covers, out-of-print singles, b-sides, etc.

Let's Kick This Shit Off In Style

2005-10-18T21:41:00.000-04:00

I started this because mp3 blogs are the hip thing to be doing right now, or something. Maybe it'll be strictly mp3s, maybe it'll branch out in the future. We'll see, I guess.

In reference to the title of this site, here's Neutral Milk Hotel live in San Francisco in 1998 playing Two Headed Boy Pt. 1 live.
Two Headed Boy (Pt. 1)

All I can say is that if you don't have "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea," it needs to move to the top of your list, immediately.