42 posts tagged “music”
Since I've spent a lot of the last few days reading Jake Slichter's mildly-amusing So You Wanna be a Rock & Roll Star, I can't stop singing Semisonic songs in my head. Now I am passing the plague on to you.
My stomach and I are no longer on speaking terms. I don't know what the hell its problem is but I am having none of it. Maybe I shouldn't haven't eaten all those tomatoes.
So instead of actual content, I will share with you this video by Jen Trynin, whose book I've been reading and mostly enjoying lately (mostly only because I have to rewrite all her dialog in my head due to her habit of over attribution).
I played this video this morning and Max & I sang it for like an hour straight afterwards. The song really is quite catchy.
I was tooling around town in Ruby this evening with the windows down, the sweet smell of lilacs in the air, and Rod Stewart on the radio. It was perfect.
As is the general rule in Ruby I was singing along as loud as I could. I am an unapologetic car-singer and I figure if someone doesn’t like it, well they don’t need to ride in Ruby.
So there I was headed home singing, “Come on angel my heart’s on fire, don’t deny you’re mans’ desire. . .” and then I stopped dead in the middle of my solo. “Hrm,” I thought. “I wonder how that lyric is punctuated, because that really would change the meaning of the line.”
Think about it, “Don’t deny your man’s desire,” is a little bit of a scuzzy pressure play.
“Don’t deny you’re mans’ desire,” is like telling her she’s just so beautiful that all of man desires her and boy is he lucky he gets to have sex with here in as soon as this song is over.
I’ve decided it’s the second one, or at least that’s what I think when I’m singing it.
1. The song “Carrie Ann” was written about Marianne Faithful.
2. “Do You Believe in Magic”
came out in like 1965 and not in about 1985 like I had always assumed,
also the band who sings it, The Lovin’ Spoonful toured with The
Supremes.
3. Though written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Marianne Faithful originally sang “As Tears Go By”, and it still sounds like a Stones song.
4. David Crosby was in The Byrds
6. “At that point we weren’t writing sons, and if it weren’t for The Beatles we probably wouldn’t have,” Keith Richards.
7. I love Pete Townshend. This is news to me. I love him because when
talking about the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Mama Cass, and Janis Joplin
he sort of flipped his wig, got all teary eyed and said, “They might be
your fucking icons, but they’re my fucking friends and they’re dead.”
8. “Don’t be nice, it’s the kiss of death,” Johnny Rotten
(I mostly stopped paying attention when they got to Woodstock and all that blah blah because really it was like 983 parts and my attention span is not that long)
- Of Montreal - Where Eagles Dare
- The Hold Steady - Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?
- Evan Dando - How Will I Know
- Petra Haden - Don't Stop Believin'
- Eels - I Can Never Take The Place Of Your Man
- Cassettes Won't Listen - Fuck and Run
- Ben Folds (w/ R. Wainwright) - Careless Whisper
- The Postal Service - Against All Odds
- Death Cab For Cutie - Sick of Myself (Matthew Sweet cover)
- New Pornographers - Your Daddy Don't Know
- Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Only The Good Die Young
- Guns N Roses - Dead Flowers [Rare Acoustic]
If you live in the Twin Cities and haven't heard of Bon Iver, it's probably time you come crawling out from under your rock. So Bon Iver is this dude from Eau Claire, Wisconsin who made this sparse and beautiful record up in his dad's Northwoods cabin.
I don't have much to say because I've been busy fighting the good fight against the jackals and working on my portfolio. However, I have to say that on this frigid Midwestern day, Bon Iver's record has been a welcome companion.
Audio: Share a song you could listen to all day on repeat.
I've always been a particular fan of this Doughty tune. I don't think there's anyone in the 28-38 age bracket that can't quickly rattle off at a least a dozen Jennifers, Jens, or Jennys that they've known throughout their lifetime.
Whenever this song comes up, I like to tell the story of my first semester on the Spectator's Editorial board back when I was in college. There were fourteen people on the Editorial Board that semester and at least six of them were named Jenny. We used to joke, because were nerdy journalism majors, about whether or not it was legal to yell Jen in a crowded Spectator office.
Lest the Voxosphere think we're all a bunch of curmudgeonly Gen-Xers, I've decided, as a public service to you, to offer an alternative to the other Best of 2007 list.
The Year in: Movies
5/ I am not so qualified with judging the movies of 2007, because I don't go to the movies too often
4/ It's not really an enjoyable experience for me, because I have ADD and sitting in a darkened theater for 2+ hours is a little like what I call Hell
3/ Shrek the Third
2/ Ratatouille
1/ Juno
The Year in: Recorded Music
5/ Challengers -- The New Pornographers
4/ Remainder -- Fesit
3/ Armchair Apocrypha, Andrew Bird
2/ Night Falls Over Kortedala -- Jens Lekman
1/ Reunion Tour -- The Weakerthans
The Year in: Live Music
5/ Laurie Lindeen Fakebook -- June, Fitzgerald Theater
4/ Paul Westerberg -- September, First Ave
3/ Wilco/Andrew Bird -- October, Northrup Auditorium
2/ The New Pornographers -- Octoberish, First Ave
1/ Mike Doughty -- May Sometime, Hippiefest
The Year in: Books
5/ Dead Boys, Richard Lange
4/ Love is a Mix Tape -- Rob Sheffield
3/ Throw Like a Girl -- Jean Thompson
2/ An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England -- Brock Clarke
1/ The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting -- Jim Walsh
The Year in: Television
5/ Austin City Limits
4/ American Masters
3/ 7 Ages of Rock
2/ Project Runway
1/ Bret Michaels, Rock of Love
What were your top 10 favorite songs or albums of 2007?
According to Eurydice, my top 10 favorite songs were all off the new New Pornographers' album. Which is not such a bad thing, because it rocked the casbah. Also, it appears that I was a big big fan of the new Weakerthans' album "Reunion Tour." Again, not a bad choice. I got me some good taste, apparently.
Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" album has a surprising number of entries in my Top 25 most played songs. But then I remembered that everytime something gut-wrenching and traumatic happens to me, I turn to Sweet's Girlfriend or Altered Beast. It's a coping mechanism I developed in college and never shook. 100% Fun, incidentally, is one of my writing albums, and not a coping album. I'm weird.
But, you know, I listened to other things. So here you go, my favorite 10 songs (in no particular order) of 2007. At least I think they're all from 2007, sometimes one of those wily 2006s slip in without my knowledge.
But before I share with you those songs, I just have to say that I think 2007 was rife with disappointment. That shitty Rilo Kiley album. The Shins' so-so Wincing the Night Away. And the slowly growing on me over time Sky Blue Sky by Wilco.
But then I did discover some great great new-to-me stuff -- Josh Ritter, Feist, and Jens Lekman.
I tried to upload all the great songs from 2007 so you could listen to them, but I forgot Dan Wilson's haunting and beautiful Free Life. So there's only 9. I can't count.
So here they are, in no particular order:
1. 1234, Feist
2. You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb, Spoon
3. I Just Want the Girl in the Blue Dress to Keep on Dancing, Mike Doughty (technically this doesn't come out until 2008, but I am a girl ahead of my time)
4. Go Place, The New Pornographers
5. Empty Hearts, Josh Ritter
6. Night Windows, The Weakerthans
7. Young Folks, Peter, Bjorn and John
8. Fiery Crash, Andrew Bird
9. A Postcard to Nina, Jens Lekman
10. Free Life, Dan Wilson
