Stephen Colbert asks the all-important question:
0 Comments Published by Kate on Thursday at 6/26/2008 11:38:00 AM.
Cookie Monster! - What happened to you??? I've been devastated.
Labels: Colbert Report, cookie, Sesame Street
Bambi Get Over It - Bad ManThe night is ancient and you’re sitting across the table from the impersonation of mystery, that one person in the world you’d trust with everything. Why you trust them is something you can never quite pin down. Between you, time is growing restless, made young again. The moment stops.
To ask “who’s going to save me now?” is to make some excuse, run into the grimy bathroom as a red herring. You find yourself looking—not at the “Bad Man” now sitting alone at the table—but at the threat in the mirror, someone you barely know. And staring out at you from the mirror is the person most responsible for all your problems.
Back to the band: I owe Song, By Toad for letting me in the know. As of yet I can't figure out how to buy their music, but I'll try to keep you all up-to-date.
Bambi Get Over It's Myspace, where you can hear some more tunes.
Labels: Bambi Get Over It
Sometimes I wish I had a fairy godmother...
0 Comments Published by Kate on Thursday at 6/19/2008 09:42:00 AM.
And then I remember...
- Record companies go after Internet Radio
- Tomatoes hate America!
- Everyone's angry at the AP lately, but Michelle Malkin tops them all
On the Colbert Report:
Labels: music video, r.e.m.
“Lights outAs of this week, the Orange Line is a place where time goes to die. So when the metro was vaguely functional last Thursday, there was a tremendous sense of solidarity amongst my fellow commuters. I lent a stranger my cell phone; people gave away their seats and made room for those getting on. Even more dramatically: eye contact was established. The usual dark silence of the train mellowed.
shoot up the station
TV’s dead, where's there to run
watch everybody come undone”
If this doesn’t sound pretty gosh darn special, you’ve never commuted in DC – to which Santogold is the perfect soundtrack. I’m not sure I recommend Santi White's debut album as brilliant, but I know I’ll be watching to see what she comes out with next. By the way, she'll be in DC on August 3...
Santogold - Lights Out
Buy Santogold (self-titled) from Amazon.com
Santogold's myspace
Labels: santogold
Goshdarnit, not again!: DCFC makes yet another great album
2 Comments Published by Kate on Monday at 6/09/2008 01:22:00 PM.
Death Cab For Cutie - Long Division"His head was a cityPlans was a gentle abstraction, an album to languish in when the sky was overcast, the future was uncertain, and the past was unbearable. Things have changed. Narrow Stairs is an album posed on the verge of a breakthrough, with a world suddenly ostensible. When I heard the album, I knew I liked it immediately.
Of paper buildings
And the echoes that remained"
The lyrics of Narrow Stairs no long rest on theoretical assumptions (“If I could open my arms / and span the length of the isle of Manhattan…”), uncertain predictions (“in the morning I fled / left a note and it read, / “someday you will be loved.”), and future plans (“if there’s no one beside you / when your soul departs / then I’ll follow you into the dark”) but on the concrete past and present, not to mention promises made and broken.
The album takes some interesting risks, the greatest of which is “I Will Possess Your Heart,” with its 4 and a ½ minute introduction. The arrangements are less groundbreaking as well, but the lyrics are closer to the surface, less impenetrable. The tradeoff is use of 3rd person narration, as in “Long Division” and “Cath.”
None of this is to say that Narrow Stairs is a happy album: in “Long Division” a man promises not to be a remainder (not that is works out); in “No Sunlight” and “The Ice Is Getting Thinner” the world is changing for the worse.
Buy Narrow Stairs from Amazon.com (or DCFC merch from the band)
Death Cab For Cutie's Website/Myspace
Death Cab For Cutie - Love Song (The Cure cover)
Chris Walla - Sing Again
Bonzo Dog Band - Death Cab For Cutie
Labels: Death Cab For Cutie, review
The Bourgeoisie, Glass Ceilings, and Happy Feelings
1 Comments Published by Kate on Saturday at 6/07/2008 01:33:00 PM.
The Submarines - You, Me, & the Bourgeoisie“It's time to be so brutally honest about
the way we think long for something fine
when we pine for higher ceilings
and bourgeois happy feelings”
I'm glad to see this race, and the consequential Democratic squabbling, over.
The lovely Submarines released Honeysuckle Weeks in May, and ever since I've been floating underwater in an ocean of pop bliss. Come to sea with me!The Submarines - Submarine Symphonika
The Submarines - Brighter Discontent (from Declare a New State!)
Buy Honeysuckle Weeks from Nettwerk
The Submarines' website/myspace
Labels: Hillary, the submarines
Gnarls Barkley - Going OnIn The Odd Couple, Gnarls Barkley has packed up the otherworldly electronic beats and gospel choirs, and is moving out of St. Elsewhere. Two of the album’s radio hits, “Going On” and “Run (I’m a Natural Disaster)” document the change, albeit with the same electronic ambience and gospel choirs. Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green seem to have split their efforts alternatively taking their music’s energy up several notches and returning to the conflicted, chilled-out soul of the ‘70s, as on “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” and “A Little Better.” “Blind Mary,” one of my favorites on the album, takes the middle ground.
Buy The Odd Couple from EchoTunes
Gnarl's Barkley's website/myspace
"Run" music video
An absurdly hilarious article from the NY Times a few days ago: it's not easy being less rich.
Labels: gnarls barkley
I may have previously expressed my dislike for those indie bands with a token girl who plays the tambourine and sings a bit. Neither do I much like actresses turned singers (or the reverse, to be fair). But listening to M. Ward’s recent collaboration with Zooey Deschanel, I can’t help but enjoy myself. Maybe it was because my first encounter with the duo was a live version of “Magic Trick” on KCRW. Another possible explanation: Deschanel sounds a little bit like Jenny Lewis at her least pretentious, a more charismatic Marissa Nadler, or a less troubled Jenny Owen Youngs. And thanks to M. Ward, the instrumentation is perfect.
She & Him - Black HoleShe & Him - Magic Trick (live on KCRW)
Buy Volume One from Merge Records
She & Him's website/myspace
Labels: m. ward, she and him
I have not dropped off the face of the earth, just off the face of the internet(s – as Stephen Colbert would say). I have, however, been suffering from a number of afflictions and addictions: podcasts, finals blues, audiobooks, stomach flu, amtrak trains, summer plans. This is all a rather long-winded way of saying: I think I’m about to make a comeback.
Aretha Franklin - Rock SteadyLabels: aretha franklin
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