What are you listening to this weekend?

[mvd]

Quite a bit yesterday when I was traveling:

Joanna - This Crazy Life
R.E.M. - New Adventures In Hi-Fi
The Weepies - Say I Am You
David Gray - Life In Slow Motion
Metric - Live It Out
Hem - Rabbit Songs
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Shake The Sheets

All highly recommended! I liked the Metric even more this time I heard it. And I might raise Joanna's grade even higher than A- - she's an excellent songwriter to go with her good vocals. I remembered right - R.E.M.'s New Adventures In Hi-Fi IS their hardest album. Even some that start slow rev up. Their last great album, and hopefully not their final great one. The Weepies remind me of the Indigo Girls, who I'm a big fan of.

And today, I heard:

Leigh Nash - Blue On Blue (it's gorgeous! This CD and Nina Gordon's Bleeding Heart Graffiti are two pop gems! I like the less overt Christian-influenced music like Leigh Nash and Eisley more than the Christian pop genre. I do like some gospel and Church music, though.)

[MoseyWalker]

1. The sounds of my air conditioner

the birds outside when I check on the chile, and silence. The silence of many cats staring at me. Well, the silence is broken by my dog making snorting noises.

I had the tv on earlier, but it just made me nuts, and the quiet time is now being appreciated.

[idgiehkt]

2. I'm getting acquainted with some of The Muffs

The band.

I'm playing the song "Lucky Guy" over and over. The way Kim Shattuck screams is utterly hot. I think I've listened to it between 25 and 30 times by now. I have it on it's own playlist. I'm easy to please.

[Initech]

3. Lots of Red Hot Chili Peppers

I'm seeing them in concert next week so I need to get in the right frame of mind!

[MoseyWalker]

5. that does sound good. Maybe I'll break some of that out too

and: you lucky EOO!

[Initech]

7. Should be a sweet show!

I finally picked up their s/t debut and "The Uplift Mofo Party Plan" last night. I still need to get the reissues of "Mother's Milk" and "One Hot Minute" some time soon.

[mvd]

8. Have you heard Stadium Arcadium?

I like them, but not so much that I buy all of their albums automatically. Is it recommended?

[Initech]

10. Personally, I think it's the best album of 2006 so far

[mvd]

12. I will consider it then

I have Californication, and enjoy that one.

[taterguy]

4. Songs For Sixty Five Roses

A great, great album that came out a couple months ago. Here's what I wrote about it for my blog:

Songs for Sixty Five Roses is a beautiful record for a great cause. John Plymale’s daughter was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Plymale turned his personal trauma into something positive by enlisting the aid of musicians he knows to make an anthology of covers of songs by North Carolina musicians performed by North Carolina musicians. The proceeds go to cystic fibrosis research.

I’ve had my copy 24 hours now and listened to it half a dozen times. So far two tracks stand out.

Eric Bachmann does a version of the old Let’s Active standard “Every Word Means No.” The original version is a shiny happy pop song, with bunny rabbits in the video and occasionally used as party background music in episodes of Friends. This version is, um, stark. Recorded in an Outer Banks hotel room. You can almost smell the isolation and desolation. Just a guy with a couple instruments sighing: “Watching . . . for a sound to lead me to where ever you are; I can’t help it, I will always want you.”

Just makes me want to go far away and hide from the world.

Then there’s Will McFarlane doing James Taylor’s “Shower the People.” I was prepared to dislike this song. Like so many mid-80s hipsters I believed in the gospel of Lester Bangs. The anthology of his writing Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung is the most dog eared book in my collection. It has a magnum opus on James Taylor and how his psuedo-sentimentality is a corrosive element on society, along with some rather morbid fantasies about how JT should be punished. Besides, I was sick of the constant playing of “Carolina In My Mind” at every UNC orientation event I attended in 1985.

But I opened my mind and heart. This version is done by McFarlane, someone I had never heard of but who was Bonnie Riatt’s long time guitarist. There’s a subtle difference between this version and Taylors. McFarlane’s voice has just an element of damage, like he’s smoked a few too many cigarettes. He’s just a little wounded which makes it perfect for this song.

The lyrics are clichéd but, well, as much as I hate to admit it, James Taylor did have a point. “Shower the people you love with love and show them the way you feel. Things are gonna work out fine if you only will.” It sounds like something I’d say to get laid back in my college days. But it’s true. One of the hardest things to do is tell people you love them and admit that you need help, at least for me.

Fortunately, Plymale is stronger than I am. He asked for help and his many talented friends responded. Now I have the pleasure of listening to one of the most beautiful records I’ve ever heard.

Thanks John. Thanks to everybody else involved in this project.

[Ghost in the Machine]

6. the voices in my head

.. sometimes they get interesting


I hear freaky people!

All kidding aside. I've been listening to the Allman Brothers, Johnny Lang, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Kenny Wayne Sheperd and some old Black Sabbath. I have to listen to War Pigs at least once per day. I even called my local radio station on Dumbya's birthday and requested it as a dedication to him. The DJ literally cracked up laughing! It went like this:

(ringing phone)
DJ: you've reached the KZ-106 Lunchtime Request Line!

Me: Yes, I was wondering if I could request a song and dedicate it to our pResident for his birthday today?

DJ: Sure! What song would you like to hear?

Me: War Pigs!

DJ: BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (regains composure) Sure! I'll see if I can dig that up for you!

Me: THANKS! And keep on rockin' in the free world!

[tinfoil tiaras]

9. OMG. I love you! You're listening to Hi Fi!!!!!

But okay, heres what I'm listening to..

-Rilo Kiley:More Adventurous (most of it anyways)
-R.E.M.: In Time (a good R.E.M. primer. My first album by them. )

and some Ok Go and 5 For Fighting...w00t.

[mvd]

11. Yep - promised I'd take it out

More Adventurous is a fantasic choice.

[tinfoil tiaras]

13. Rilo Kiley is amazingggg

Nuff said.

Glad you took New Adventures out, too

[tjwmason]

14. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

It's this evening's Prom - and is quite stunning.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms

[wildhorses]

15. and may I ask what you think of Life in Slow Motion?

David Gray...


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[mvd]

16. It's not quite as good as White Ladder

But I'd still give it an A. The melodies/arrangements are more sophisticated than some people give it credit for.

[wildhorses]

17. yes, I have white ladder, too...

I like the instuments this guy uses and there is a haunting quality that is unique for today's standards. The melodies are achingly lyrical and the arrnagements are very subtle. His choice of topics seem autobiographical and I wonder what is going on in his life when he wrote these tunes?

Perhaps it is melancholy but, I have LOVED this CD since I got it last year...over and over I have played it...dunno maybe it is just a phase I am going through

[mvd]

18. I've liked David Gray ever since he came out

I have a LOT of albums, so no one album gets played all the time. But he has gotten his share of play.

Have you checked out his stuff from before White Ladder?

[wildhorses]

20. just the babylon song that got airplay...

what else is out there?

[mvd]

21. Here's his page

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:nckzu3e...

Haven't got all of them yet.

[wildhorses]

22. thanks for the link...I will have to get some more of his stuff

the Life In Slow Motion will prolly always be my personal favorite. The timing with what was going on in my life was just TOO perfect...He is a songwriter extraordinarre IMHO

[crim son]

19. I've been listening to relative calm in my head

for the first time in months and months. Something has left and it feels really good!