Wallowing

When you're in the mood for a good wallowing session, you need just the right music. Just in case any of you readers out there were planning on a life questioning depression kick, here's my quick list of

5 Great Songs for Wallowing, Despair, etc.

As is usually the case, these are in no real specific order.

5. "Wasted Days" by the Slackers

Take the repeated line "what have I done wrong" tossed in with some mournful hornfuls and you've got yourself a self-pity pie.


4. "Autumn Sweater" by Yo La Tengo

The organ melody here is key. If you take out the organ, there's a lot of really rocking percussion going on with nothing to counterbalance it. Ira Kaplan's bashful vocal delivery helps too.


3. "I'm Still Your Fag" by Broken Social Scene

Gentle quiet vocals, meandering instrumentals, spaced out drums. All the elements are there.


2. "Walking On A Wire" by the Get Up Kids

A lot of Get Up Kids songs rely on the lyrics to convey the emotion of the song. The lyrics relate to the mood here, but the slow winding guitar tells much more of a story than anything that's sung. This was the first get up kids song I ever heard and not one other song by them sounds anything like it, which to me is a shame.


1. "If You're Feeling Sinister" by Belle & Sebastian

The second song on this list that was my introduction to a band. This song is like "Autumn Sweater" in a sense; elements of the song are very upbeat, but the overall package is certainly not. When I saw this song played live, it was an upbeat show, and they delivered a dancy/rocking tune, more evidence of the power of delivery.


Now, I believe that wallowing is a good thing to do every now and again. It's a good way to get that built up sadness out of your system. But while it might be a fine place to visit, it's certainly no place to live. If you find yourself staying too long, maybe you need to remember that you don't have to be so sad.

we're back

How great it is that we are back. I'm know you're excited. So I am gonna give my own little list of songs from the summer. I meant to just put up my favorite songs from the summer regardless of when they came out, but it ended up being all songs from the summer.



1. Pull Shapes - Pipettes
This song will lift your spirits no matter what. Happiness in musical form. What's it about? Loving music and how it makes you dance. Speaking of dancing, try listening to this song when you are in a car alone, YOU WILL DANCE. It is involuntary. You can't help it. If you think I'm lieing, wait until the singer asks: "is that a drum beat?" The ensuing drum part is a one way ticket to dance city.



2. In The Morning - Junior Boys
One of my first posts on this blog was about this song. It's off the new album that comes out today, and it should be a good one. This song needs to be heard on a dance floor (maybe I just love to dance by myself in a car) and that synth line at the 3 minute mark still has my ears ejaculating.



3. Watermelon vs. The Pineapple - Xiu Xiu
This song is also from an album that comes out today. Usually Jamie Stewart's voice is really intense and creepy. Here it's barely less intense, and maybe more creepy. But as far as artsy indie shit that your Young Jeezy lovin' roommate would hate goes, this is fantastic. Underneath it all, this song can be both beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.



4. A Public Affair - Jessica Simpson
I'm on some cheesy radio shit right here, but man I love this song. I really am not a Jessica Simpson fan (TV shows, music, and her looks included), but I just can't help but enjoy this song.



5. Another Sunny Day - Belle and Sebastian
I didn't put this list in any order, but this song is an unofficial number one. My favorite song from my favorite album of the summer right here. Murdoch's voice builds a little intensity with every line of the song and by the time he gets to the last verse he just melts your heart. This whole album was so good it really could have taken up all 5 songs on this list.


So that's the list. Left off were about 20 different songs by The Knife, new TV on the Radio, along with new Mountain Goats songs, and looking back over it I can't believe I left off Voxtrot, but that's the list. Oh, and this summer I also decided WWE wrestling isn't good anymore.

BTW, I am totally into Young Jeezy, too. (definitely watch this clip, maybe not the best made-for-youtube clip ever, but worth it to see Michelangelo dancing in a club)

not autumn yet

Yes Green Hornet, summer is ending. I will miss the summer. Here's a song to get some nostalgia pumping as you think back to the last three months:



A Summer Wasting - Belle and Sebastian


Let's not let the seasonal depression get us down too much. First off, summer is too fucking hot. Second, autumn has some cool things: football (both American and English) start, trees look cooler, and we get to see women wear summer clothes when it's too cold because they don't want to admit it's fall. So here's a song to listen to in the autumn.



Autumn Sweater - Yo La Tengo


And if you need something else to tell you summer can't really be too great, here it is:



Summer Jam - Craig David ft. The Artful Dodger

Indie-pendence Day

So for the second year in a row, I headed down to Battery Park in Manhattan to celebrate the 4th of July. Last year was Yo La Tengo and Stephen Malkmus, which was a bit of a mess with a lotta people get stuck outside. This year they switched things up and had a free ticket system, so I ended up getting inside the fences, to see Belle and Sebastian. A friend of mine used to describe the band as something he really loved, but mostly listened to right before bedtime. I was confident I was going to enjoy the show, I just didn't know how high-energy I was going to get. I got waay more than I could've expected. Even if every song they played wasn't the most danceable out of their catalogue, they funked it up. "If You're Feeling Sinister" had a pulsing drum beat added and "If She Wants Me" had its guitar line tweaked from that "swishing in the wind" feel to far more hip-shaking heights. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy this band on their albums too, but the live show was a fucking blast. The set went for around two hours, with lots of great repartee between the audience and frontman Stuart Murdoch. There was a sufficient amount of jokes about the Scottish band playing to celebrate the 4th of July, and long quotations from "The Warriors", all to great crowd response. A lot of the material was new to me, with the band drawing heavily from The Boy with the Arab Strap. During one of the new album tracks "Sukie In The Graveyard", someone behind me actually pulled out a harmonica and started jamming with the band. The encore came in the form of a heavily distorted guitar version of the star spangled banner, sort of. You can't really fault a scottish guy for not exactly knowing the melody though. That went straight into the titular track from Arab Strap. The DowntownNYC program that set the free show up has a lot of other events going on this summer and is definitely worth checking out. Hot Chip, The Hold Steady, and Ted Leo are the first couple acts I can think of that are being presented this summer. You can search through the events at the group's page here.