voxtrot

the song "missing pieces" on the Voxtrot 'Raised by wolves' EP is GREAT. also, I hear they are finally working on a full-length album - very excited about it.

Milwaukee Art Museum

the 1950s Francis Bacon exhibit was impressive. the real attraction is the building, though:

belly of a mountain

did any of you go to the sparklehorse show at the high noon last night? I was not very impressed, but I can't even really put my finger on what it was that was disappointing. The music was flawless and the instruments were perfectly balanced. It may have been a bit too clean - like they might have just been playing the cd through very loud speakers. anyway, it wasn't memorable at all.

I'm getting really bored with all of the pretty-good-but-not-great music out there. really bored. my measure of whether music is really good or not is based on whether I find myself daydreaming about being in the band while listening, and that hasn't happened in a while.

three ways to become cooler

1. listen to the new Arcade Fire album
2. start smoking
3. live in the house pictured below
(hint: its so ugly and ridiculous, its cool...?)

(click to enlarge image - its worth it)

January Album Reviews

The shins, "wincing the night away": they've just recycled their past two albums, only this album doesn't have the coherence of their first album, and lacks the really catchy, great songs of their second. this album also doesn't sound as nostalgic as their last two. but its the shins, they have a good sound, so I like it.

Menomena, "Friend and Foe": overall its pretty good, although there's some sporadically lame stuff on this album. in fact, if you listen to this album, just skip track 1 altogether. some of it reminds me of 90 day men (esp track 7).

Of montreal "hissing fauna, are you the destroyer" - probably good although I can't say I remember; I started playing it, and then all of a sudden it was 52 minutes later and I realized I had just been daydreaming about disneyland which is exactly what happens to me when I listen to Apples in Stereo - and I don't even like disneyland. too much of that "power pop" sound for me.

Clap your hands "some loud thunder": very average. maybe kind of irritating to listen to, which leads me to believe that their first album may not have been very good (I was obviously taken in by the novelty of their sound. they got me).

Deerhunter "cryptograms": wall of sound. track 2, 5 = stereolab, except not catchy. lots of pointless noise. boring. stupid repetitive shit.

Beirut "lon gisland EP": amazing. go buy it.

Hammock "raising your voice...trying to stop an echo": not very memorable. very mellow - I might have fallen asleep while listening to this album. good in the way that taking a bubble bath is. but without bubbles.

Husky Rescue "ghost is not real": Broadcast w/ folk flare. carefully composed. underrated, this album is actually pretty good. though, at times a little bit too "delicate" - two minutes into the album, there's a moment where you think it might turn into something. voice sounds like the singer from blonde redhead, but not as angry

The long blondes "someone to drive you home": stop trying to be the organ. ok, but since you are trying, you're doing a pretty decent job.

don't bother with: fennesz, sally shapiro, or the silent years

time flies...

A very happy birthday to my youngest brother!


Luke: I can't believe you're already 16!

In the particular particular

cool shit. can be bought here.

gilded literary allusion

just finished "The Shape of Things to Come; Prophecy and the American Voice" by Greil Marcus and just wanted to say that reading a greil marcus description of just about anything is better than experiencing the thing itself.

hibernation/ennui

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

seriously the saddest thing ever. I recommend reading it, but not right before going to bed - it'll give you weird dreams. speaking of dreams, the kid in the book describes one of his bad dreams:

"I had this penguin that you wound up and it would waddle and flap its flippers. And we were in that house that we used to live in and it came around the corner but nobody had wound it up and it was really scary"

that is exactly what scary-kid-dreams are like.

top 2006 albums, revised

a few things: first, I just accidentally dropped my pasta dinner in a sink full of soapy water. second, I have a change to make to my top 10 of 2006: we can throw out yo la tengo and put beirut in, but not necessarily in yo la tengo's place. I'm not sure where it would go in the ranking yet (I say "yet", but I'm not actually going to go back and figure out where it belongs). I will say, though, that beirut is good, but maybe not as good as I'm thinking it is. the thing about this album is it just doesn't sound like anything else I've been listening to, so I'm being tricked into thinking its really good and interesting, when really it might just be good and 'different from the stuff april listened to in 2006'. allmusic.com has sunset rubdown and neutral milk hotel listed as "similar artists," which is weird and makes no sense.

the last thing I wanted to say was that I finished "women in love" and think that D.H. Lawrence must have been kind of a weird guy.

P.S. the movie, "the station agent" is enjoyable. the main character is a dwarf. yes.

note: digitally altered

top 2006 albums

1. tv on the radio
2. +/-
3. neko case
4. thom yorke
5. hot chip
6. m. ward
7. sonic youth
8. yo la tengo
9. destroyer
10 cat power

others worth noting: sparklehorse, swan lake, camera obscura, grizzly bear, hold steady, sunset rubdown

most overrated album: joanna newsome

caveat: the yo la tengo album probably isn't actually that good.

...this year, I couldn't bear to put my tree at the end of the driveway with the garbage cans, so I hid it in the back yard behind the garage...though, it won't be long before my landlords discover it and retire it to the end of the driveway on garbage night...

what I'll do for a little extra money

what year is this? I'm confused because I thought it was 2007. I wonder if this computer has the game TI invaders on it.